Company Announcements

Digital Surf acquired Image Metrology in July.

Bitplane, an Oxford Instruments company, named Carl Zeiss Microscopy as a US distributor for the Imaris image-processing software.

FEI’s second quarter sales grew 6.5% to $237.0 million (see IBO 7/31/14), including 1.4% growth from acquisitions. Currency decreased sales by 0.2%. Adjusted operating profit rose 14.1% to $36.8 million. Industry Group sales rose 22.7% to make up 54% of revenues. Science Group sales decreased 7.6%. The company lowered its revenue outlook for the year to 5%–7% growth.

The Agilent Technologies spin-off, Keysight Technology, began operating under its new name in August (see IBO 9/30/13) and includes the company’s AFM, nanoidenters, SEM and universal-testing–machine product lines.

Product Introductions

Thermo Fisher Scientific introduced in July the Thermo Scientific K-Alpha+ x-ray photoelectron spectrometer, featuring improved count rates and better recognition of low-concentration components.

Bruker launched the Inspire integrated SPM IR system, which features 10 nm spatial resolution in chemical and materials-property mapping and offers IR-scattering scanning near-field optical microscopy.

Bruker released in August the ESPIRIT DynamicS software for the simulation of electron backscatter diffraction patterns, calling it the first commercially available software to calculate Kikuchi patterns utilizing the dynamic theory of electron diffraction. It supports all brands of EBSD systems.

In July, EDAX, an AMETEK company, introduced TEAM 3D IQ, which extends the source of typical 3-D energy-dispersive spectroscopy data sets from simple elemental maps to full spectral-imaging data sets for each slice.

ZEISS launched the Mineralogic Mining solution, which combines a mineral-analysis engine with an SEM and energy-dispersive spectrometers for full quantitative evaluation during ore exploration, recovery and tailings-control processes.

ZEISS released in July the LSM 880 confocal microscope with Airyscan, which detects signals with a multichannel area detector with 32 elements rather than a single-point detector, enabling light-efficient imaging.

FEI introduced in July a phase-plate solution for its TEMs for increased contrast of sensitive biological samples. It has a four-month lifetime. The firm also released the Titan Halo TEM, featuring enhanced flexibility for multiscale applications in life and biomaterials sciences.

Hitachi High-Technologies launched the SU5000 Schottky field-emission SEM incorporating a new EM Wizard user interface for improved operability and new axis-adjustment technology.