Company Announcements

NT-MDT announced that its US sales of scanning probe microscopes increased threefold in 2010. Sales in Europe grew more than 35%.

Daniel McGee was named president of Carl Zeiss Nano Technology Systems’ North American operations in February.

JPK Instruments appointed Lotis Korea as its exclusive Korean distributor and KL Analytical as its exclusive Malaysian distributor.

In February, Hitachi High-Technologies announced that Tokyo Customs accepted its petition to prohibit the import of FEI’s focused ion beam (FIB)–SEM systems to Japan based on claims that they infringe its Japan Patent No. 2,774,884 for micro-sampling technology. According to Hitachi, Tokyo Customs will prohibit the import of FEI’s Helios NanoLab 450S, Quanta 3D 200i and Quanta 3D FEG 600 systems. In June 2010, Tokyo Customs granted an injunction under a separate action (see IBO 7/15/10).

Effective April 1, Michael C. Woodford was named president and CEO of Olympus. He previously served as executive managing director of the European division.

Effective April 1, Olympus began selling its biomedical and industrial microscopes directly in 14 additional US states that were previously served by Leeds Precision Instruments. Leeds will focus on its forensics systems.

FEI named Dr. Ad Huijser to its Board in February. He served as executive vice president and CTO for Koninklijke Philips Electronics prior to his retirement in 2006.

FEI’s 2010 sales increased 9.9% to $634.2 million (see IBO 3/31/11). Electronics sales grew 76.2%, Research and Industry sales fell 21.2%, Life Sciences revenue decreased 8.9%, and Service and Components revenue rose 12.2% to account for 35%, 29%, 12% and 24% of sales, respectively. The US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific Region and Rest of World made up 32%, 33% and 35% of sales, respectively.

Product Introductions

In April, Hitachi High-Technologies began shipping its new SU8000 family of field emission SEMs, consisting of four models.

Resolution at ultra-low landing voltages is 1.3 nm at 1.0 kV. The company expects to sell 400 units annually.

Sales/Orders of Note

Carl Zeiss announced in February the receipt of a $22.6 million contract from the Circuit Analysis Tool program of the US government’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity to develop certain nano-manufacturing and imaging applications based on its ORION gas-field ion source technology.

Oxford Instruments announced in February the installation of its 1,000th X-Max large-area silicon drift detector at Atotech, along with three other X-Max units. The product was introduced a little over two years ago.