Photonics News: Week in Brief: 09/24/21
Qioptiq’s new production facility in Göttingen, Germany offers 72,000 sq ft of space, including 16,000 sq ft of dedicated Class 5 cleanrooms. Courtesy of Excelitas.
WALTHAM, Mass. — Industrial photonic technology manufacturer Excelitas Technologies opened a new plant for its German subsidiary Qioptiq Photonics in Göttingen, Germany. The facility expands the company’s capacity for assembly of sophisticated optical systems and components for the semiconductor industry. The production facility offers 72,000 sq ft of space, including 16,000 sq ft of dedicated Class 5 cleanrooms to meet very high cleanliness requirements.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Viavi Solutions made a $200,000 gift to the University of Arizona Wyant College of Optical Sciences to establish the “H. Angus Macleod Scholarship funded by VIAVI Solutions Inc.” VIAVI’s gift honors Dr. H. Angus Macleod, author of the seminal text Thin-Film Optical Filters. Macleod mentored a generation of students who would go on to enable foundational innovation in applications that include laser systems, spectroscopy, displays, and optical communications.
WOOD DALE, Ill. — PHC Corp. of North America and SCREEN Holdings will partner to market and sell the SCREEN Cell3iMager series of live-cell imaging systems in North America. The ex vivo imaging instruments enable organoid and spheroid imaging with high accuracy, using high-throughput, high-speed, and noninvasive technology for cellular research, drug discovery, cosmetic, and biopharmaceutical applications.
CAMBRIDGE, England — A consortium led by Cambridge-based quantum computing software company Riverlane and the National Physical Laboratory developed an open-source hardware abstraction layer that makes software portable across different quantum computing hardware platforms, including different qubit technologies. A £7.6 million ($10.43 million) project funded by the U.K. government’s Industrial Challenge Strategy Fund brought together consortium collaborators. The consortium includes U.K. quantum hardware companies SeeQC, Hitachi Europe, Universal Quantum, Duality Quantum Photonics, Oxford Ionics, and Oxford Quantum Circuits, as well as U.K.-based chip designer ARM.
SOUTHLAKE, Texas — OncoNano Medicine, a clinical-stage company focused on molecular approaches to drug design for cancer treatment, began a multiyear collaboration with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) to discover and conduct translational research of novel cancer therapeutics that leverage OncoNano’s core nanotechnology platform. OncoNano will sponsor research efforts in the laboratory of professor Jinming Gao of UTSW. OncoNano will have an exclusive option to license new technology arising from the research conducted under this agreement.
QAI vision silicon company Ambarella partnered with Dongfeng Fengshen (Aeolus) to build a driver monitoring system based on Ambarella’s CV25 AI vision system-on-a-chip and development platform. Courtesy of Ambarella.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Ambarella, an AI vision silicon company, has partnered with Dongfeng Fengshen (Aeolus), a mid- to high-end brand of the Dongfeng Motor Group, to build a driver monitoring system based on Ambarella’s CV25 AI vision system-on-a-chip and development platform. The first mass-production application of this system is the Dongfeng Fengshen Yixuan Max.
MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio — Advanced materials company Materion Corp. will acquire H.C. Starck Solutions’ electronic materials business (HCS-Electronic Materials). Following closing of the transaction, valued at $380 million, HCS-Electronic will be part of Materion’s advanced materials segment. The acquisition of HCS-Electronic Materials builds on Materion’s acquisition of Optics Balzers in 2020, which expanded the company’s global position in optical thin-film coatings, furthering its transformation to a leading advanced materials supplier.
TRUMPF is boosting its support for its wholly owned subsidiary, Q.ANT with an eight-figure investment. The funding will allow the start-up to venture into the development and production of quantum computer chips. Courtesy of TRUMPF.
DITZINGEN, Germany — Technology company TRUMPF is increasing its support for its wholly owned subsidiary Q.ANT with a new eight-figure investment. The funding will allow the startup to begin development and production of quantum computer chips. Q.ANT has developed a photonic chip process that is able to create highly specialized optical channels on conventional silicon chips. The process will enable established mainframe computers to be equipped with processors using quantum technology.
MONMOUTH JUNCTION, N.J. — Princeton Infrared Technologies (PIRT) received a one-year, $1 million award from the Air Force Armament Directorate to fund the development of a 540 x 512 uncooled SWIR camera integrated with BAE Systems’ Open Seeker Architecture (OSA) for low-cost targeting and tracking applications. PIRT will work with the Air Force Armament Directorate to begin integrating the OSA-compliant SWIR prototype camera and to conduct tower and captive carry tests to demonstrate the advance capabilities.
The U.K.’s National Quantum Computing Centre is expected to be completed in early 2023. Courtesy of UKRI.
OXFORDSHIRE, England — Construction began on the U.K.’s National Quantum Computing Centre. The facility is expected to be completed in early 2023, after which it will work with businesses, government, and the research community to deliver quantum computing capabilities for the U.K. and support the growth of the emerging industry.
ST. MELLONS, Wales — The Compound Semiconductor Centre will participate in PowerElec, a €1.7 million ($2 million) project within the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR - EURAMET) running from June 2021 to May 2024, to develop and apply new metrological tools for quality control of wide bandgap semiconductors. The project will develop new instrumentation, nondestructive measurement methods, and agreed standards for the characterization of wafer quality at multiple levels in the material and device fabrication process.
Published: September 2021