August Technology Corp., a Bloomington, Minn., supplier of advanced macro defect inspection and analysis products for microelectronic industries, was granted a US patent for a method that detects defects on the circumferential edge of a semiconductor wafer. The method takes images along the wafer circumference, then divides them into slices to extract information on a variety of defects -- as many as 30 percent of which originate at the wafer edge. Since this method captures images of a defect in real time, it can preserve the defect size, location, color information and surface morphology of the defect for later review, which is key to identifying the defect's source, the company said.    . . .    Nanotechnology companies Dendritic NanoTechnologies Inc. (DNT) of Mount Pleasant, Mich., and Lumera of Bothell, Wash, have entered into a joint research agreement to co-develop proprietary surface chemistries for applications of Lumera's ProteomicProcessor array reader. DNT will build chemistries on proprietary Lumera surfaces, focusing on using its dendrimers patents, and Lumera will test and evaluate the dendrimer-based approaches. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.    . . .    IPG Laser GmbH of Burbach, Germany, recently installed a diode-pumped 20-kW ytterbium fiber laser system in Berlin under a contract award from the national materials and chemicals technological institute of Germany, BAM (Bundesanstalt fur Materialforschung und-prufung/the German Federal Institute for Materials Research & Testing). BAM purchased a YLR-20000 with central emission wavelength of 1070 nm and beam quality of less than 11 mm x mrad. The unit is water cooled and delivers 20 kW of output power through a flexible fiber with a 200-µm core. It will be used for materials processing research on alloys and steel. IPG Laser is a subsidiary of IPG Photonics Corp., based in Oxford, Mass.    . . .    Lumileds Lighting of San Jose, Calif., is suing recently merged Taiwan LED companies Epistar Corp. and United Epitaxy Co. (UEC) for patent infringement. Lumileds, a joint venture between Agilent Technologies and Philips Lighting, filed a complaint against both companies with the US International Trade Commission stating that Epistar's omnidirectional mirror adhesion AlGaInP LED products and UEC's metal bond and glue bond AlGaInP LED products infringe on Lumiled patents. Lumileds wants to prohibit the LEDs and products containing the LEDs from entering the US. Lumileds also filed a patent infringement complaint in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against UEC and Epistar seeking damages and an injunction.