Nominations for the 2006 Akira Inoue Award for outstanding achievement in environment, health and safety in the semiconductor industry are now being accepted. The annual award is presented by industry association SEMI through its Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Div. and the recipient will be announced during the SEMICON Japan exposition in December. The deadline for submitting nominations is July 28. The award honors individuals who show outstanding leadership in strengthening the industry's EHS performance, or individuals who are responsible for developing or implementing successful process, product or material innovations that improve the industry's EHS record. Past award winners include Isao Uchigasaki, chairman of the board, Hitachi Chemical Co.; Saburo Kusama, chairman and CEO, Seiko Epson Corp.; Craig Barrett, chairman of the board, Intel; and Pasquale Pistorio, honorary chairman, STMicroelectronics. Nominations may be submitted via the SEMI EHS Web site, www.semi.org/ehs    . . .    Capella Photonics Inc. of San Jose, Calif., a provider of subsystems for use in reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers and optical cross-connect applications, has two new executives. Rich Yonker is now chief financial officer (CFO), and Elizabeth Perry is vice president of engineering. Prior to joining Capella, Yonker was CFO for Avanex; he has also served as CFO for Actelis Networks, Agility Communications, MMC Networks and Asyst Technologies. Perry has served on Capella's board of directors for two years. She was a senior vice president with Ciena for five years and has held senior management positions at Hitachi Telecom (USA) and Alcatel USA/Rockwell International.    . . .    Semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics inaugurated its new state-of-the-art design and development facility in Greater Noida, India, on Saturday. The company also announced its plans to invest $30 million in local operations over the next two years and recruit 300 new engineers by the end of 2006. The new facility, designed to maximize energy and water conservation, is set on a 100,000-sq.-m area and has a capacity for 5000 employees, making it ST's largest design center outside Europe and one of its largest R&D facilities worldwide. STMicroelectronics India is one of the largest semiconductor research and design operations in the country, currently employing 1500 people.