Company Announcements

FEI and CEA-Leti announced in March a three-year agreement to characterize advanced semiconductor materials for the 22 nm technology node. Research will focus on the use of holography to improve the sensitivity of dopant profiling and the use of nanobeam diffraction techniques to measure changes in strain and other crystallographic parameters.

In March, Nanosurf and Zurich Instruments announced a strategic technology partnership to develop scanning probe microscope solutions.

In April, Fugro Robertson entered into an exclusive development and distribution agreement with Carl Zeiss for the portable RoqSCAN rock properties/mineralogical analyzer for use at oil and gas well sites.

In April, Leica Microsystems and Definiens announced a comarketing agreement for their respective confocal instrumentation and Developer XD software.

NT-MDT opened an R&D office in Tempe, Arizona, in April.

For the six months ending March 31, revenue for Carl Zeiss’s Microscopy Group grew 10% to €209 million ($300 million) to make up 10% of company revenues.

Product Introductions

JPK Instruments launched the NanoWizard 3 NanoScience atomic force microscope (AFM), featuring expanded flexibility and modularity. It provides optimum imaging in air and liquid for single molecules, polymers and surface science.

Uniscan Instruments introduced the Shallow µTriCell for topographic measurements using its M370 Scanning Electrochemical Workstation.

EDAX, an AMETEK company, released the TEAM Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) 2.0 Analysis System software, featuring enhancements to streamline analysis.

In April, Oxford Instruments NanoAnalysis released the AZtec materials-characterization system, which is designed to integrate all microanalysis techniques and deliver new levels of accuracy. The first release combines EDS and electron backscatter diffraction information.

Hitachi High-Technologies launched the SU9000 field emission (FE)–scanning electron microscope (SEM), featuring a new type of cold FE electron source for greater stability and higher brightness.

Bruker introduced the Dimension FastScan AFM, featuring a XYZ closed-loop head that scans at high-speed rates while delivering low drift and low noise.

Nikon introduced a streamlined cost-effective version of the A1 MP multiphoton confocal imaging system.

Sales/Orders of Note

FEI announced in April the shipment of its 250th Helios NanoLab DualBeam focused ion beam/SEM system.