OTHER ELECTRONICS
UPDATE
JUNE 2007
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
NANOTECHNOLOGY
Pentagon EMS Opens Manufacturing Facility in Mexico
Pentagon EMS Corporation has just completed expansion, opening the doors to a brand new manufacturing facility located in Juarez, Chihuahua Mexico. This new manufacturing plant is equipped with the latest CNC vertical milling centers and will handle tooling production and assembly for Pentagon's entire Mexican client base. Moreover, this additional manufacturing capacity paves the way for expansion of the Mexican client base. Removing that portion of the workload from the Beaverton, OR facility will in turn provide additional manufacturing capacity for Pentagon's USA, Canadian and other international customers.
New Factory Sets China as Sony Ericsson's Strategic Base
Sony Ericsson this week announced it has started construction of a new factory in Beijing, a move deemed to make China its global manufacturing base.
The new factory covers 199,060 sq. ft. (18,500sqm) and will manufacture mobile handsets and assemble surface mounted circuit boards. It is located between Sony's two other plants—Beijing Se Putian Mobile Communications (BMC), which produces mobile handsets, and Beijing Suohong Electronics, which manufactures PCBs.
Microfabrication Cleanroom under Construction at Boston College
This will be a Class 10,000 facility with Class 1,000 environments. The state-of-the-art 4500 sq. ft. gross cleanroom will offer photolithography, electron bean lithography, dip-pen nanolithography, and more.
A cleanroom manager is being sought that will work closely with administration and faculty members to facilitate laboratory design, space renovations, facility planning, equipment purchasing and installation.
Omron Opens First R&D Center in China
Omron Corp. opened the Omron R&D Collaborative Innovation Center in China, its first major R&D facility outside Japan. Located at the Shanghai Zizhu Science-based Technology Park, the $9.7 million facility will focus on further developing Omron's core competencies in sensing and control technology.
From 2004-2006, Omron has made a series of strategic investments in the Chinese market totaling almost $ 250 million. These have focused on production and sales network expansion and include the establishment of a global design and production center for industrial automation in Shanghai, an automotive electronics production base in Guangzhou, the expansion of an electronic components factory in Shenzhen and the setting up of a purchasing unit in Shanghai.
The Shanghai R&D Center will initially house Omron Institute of Sensing & Technology Co. Ltd, whose researchers are focusing on vision sensing, including facial recognition, and control technologies that equip machines with near-human levels of judgment. Initially, around 100 researchers will be engaged in research on approximately 30 different themes. The numbers of both personnel and research themes will double by 2009, and grow further as internal business divisions set up individual research units in the center.
Samsung to Build TV Plant in Russia
Samsung Electronics, which is the leading brand of LCD and plasma TVs in Russia, plans to build a large-scale TV factory near Moscow. The company will construct a 2,098,200 sq. ft. (195,000-sq.m) television factory in Kaluga, 85 km southwest of Moscow with an investment of US$57 million. Construction is scheduled to start next month and finish by October 2008. Production is aimed at 2.2 million units annually by 2010.
Samsung has a 20.7 percent market share for LCD TVs in Russia, and a 22.9 percent market share for plasma TVs, as of April. The company is currently the leading player in the Russian digital TV market, followed by Philips with 20.5 percent market share and LG Electronics with 21.8 percent.
The Russian plant will be Samsung's ninth television factory, following plants in Korea, Mexico, China, Slovakia, Hungary, Thailand, Indonesia and Brazil.
UT Dallas Dedication of New State-of-the-Art Natural Science and Engineering Research Laboratory (NSERL)
The NSERL building could eventually accommodate as many as 350 faculty, graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. The four-story, 192,000 square-foot research facility was completed in December 2006 after 24 months of construction. Officials expect to fill the building with high-level faculty and scientists, including some currently at UT Dallas and others yet to be recruited. They will come from such disparate fields as electrical engineering, materials science and engineering, chemistry, biology and behavioral and brain sciences. NSERL also could provide space for small, start-up businesses, or incubators, which often spring from university research efforts.
The building was uniquely designed to break down barriers that may exist because a researcher is in one department versus another. Laboratories within NSERL provide space for scientists and engineers ranging from synthetic chemists who require significant fume hood space to electrical engineers who need open labs for large equipment.
A highlight of the building is the Nanoelectronics Materials Laboratory located on the fourth floor. Work done in the lab has two major components: research into materials for integrated circuits used in computers, cell phones and other technologies, and research into low-cost organic materials. The lab contains a large vacuum system that allows researchers to deposit thin film materials one anatomic layer at a time. Unique in the world, the system cost more than $3 million to build.
Class 10,000 cleanroom facilities also have been included in the new building, adding mini-environments of high integrity. By definition, a cleanroom has a controlled level of contamination, specified by the number of particles per m3 and maximum particle size. To offer perspective, the outside world would be considered a Class 5,000,000 cleanroom.
Main laboratories in the building possess large windows that overlook open work stations, allowing those outside to observe experiments in progress. At the back of each module, there are support areas for small specialized equipment, as well as linear equipment rooms that run behind all labs and house equipment such as pumps, compressors and refrigerators in order to avoid taking up prime space and help reduce noise.
Other special equipment in the building includes high-resolution electron microscopes that require low vibration and low electromagnetic fields.
Additional lab tools will be added as individual faculty move into the building. Research groups that require wet laboratory space or deal with hazardous materials are given priority for this location; “dry” research, such as in computer science or fundamental mathematics, is not likely to be allotted space in the building.
In light of UT Dallas’ strategic plan to reach Tier One status as a research institution, coupled with the additional scientists that will be added to the faculty, approximately one-third of the building’s space is being reserved for future expansion.
Among NSERL’s outstanding architectural features are the colorful anodized stainless steel shingles that cover 15 percent of the building’s façade. In a process that doesn’t involve paints, pigments or dyes, the colors on the shingles are produced by the play of light on an oxide layer, which reflects a stunning range of color. Additionally, the oxide layer provides a protective coating, increasing the shingles’ resistance to corrosion.
A customized glass curtain wall slopes upward four stories and spans nearly the entire width of the east side of the building. It is accompanied by a standing seam metal roof, which is segmented, curved, tiered, folded and bent. The building’s façade also employs indentations, deep shadow boxes, cantilevered surfaces, undulations and facets running vertically and horizontally. Fossilized limestone from the Texas Hill Country adds texture to the southeast corner of the building.
Intel Opens Design Center in Colorado
Intel Corp. inaugurated a microprocessor design in Colorado after nearly two years of revamping an existing building. The new facility will employ 300 workers, and is located adjacent to AMD Inc.'s "Mile-High Design Center."
The development facility is intended to confirm Intel's continuing commitment to Colorado after it closed a CMOS fab in Colorado Springs. Fort Collins was previously the site of a joint Intel-Hewlett-Packard effort that designed the Itanium microprocessor.
While HP has largely exited microprocessor design since Intel acquired its design business in 2005, the company's design team here harks back to development of the PA-RISC architecture in the early 1990s.
Motorola Opens R&D Site in Israel
Motorola is joining the ranks of multinational technology companies stepping up their operations in Israel. The company is expanding its presence in Jordan Valley with a government-backed R&D site that will initially employ 200 engineers and researchers. Over the next five years, the Israel Investment Center will grant Motorola around $12 million, plus $900 per employee for up to 60 months, for a maximum of 200 employees. Researchers to be hired over the next three years will focus on product development for the company's cell phones, computers and software products lines.
Motorola said it is already looking into the possibility of expanding the facility and hiring between 300 and 500 engineers within five years. The company has been operating in Israel since 1964 and currently employs 3,500 personnel across several sites.
Lm400,000 Investment for KBIC Expansion
Investment, Industry and Information Technology Minister Austin Gatt announced that the government, with the help of the European Social Fund, will be investing about Lm400,000 to expand the Corradino Business Incubation Centre (KBIC). KBIC was established in 2001 and it has since been a huge success, with an 85 percent occupancy rate, said Dr Gatt. Last year alone, three companies that made use of KBIC’s services employed about 200 people. About four companies were on the waiting list to form part of the incubation centre. The tendering process for the expansion of the centre is expected to be completed by the end of 2008, while the construction of the new part of the centre will take another three years or so. “We have decided to expand KBIC from a centre that houses 23 units, to one that will cover a larger space, housing 40 units,” the minister said. KBIC is run by Malta Enterprise and is intended to target industrial groups from the sectors of information and communication technology, mechanical and electrical engineering, renewable energy resources, biotechnology, as well as other innovative projects, which are more advanced than those prevailing in their respective industry, in terms of technology, know-how and skills. The aim of the business incubation centre is to improve the rate and chance of growth of entrepreneurs’ ventures. Incubators act as an economic catalyst, forming an important part of a country’s support infrastructure, being instrumental in identifying, encouraging and supporting people to start their own businesses with the development of innovative and high value-added products. In essence, incubators play a nurturing role in assisting new and emerging businesses to survive and grow during their vulnerable start-up period. Western countries developed the business incubation concept during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many new businesses fail in the conceptualization of their idea and many others fail in their first few years of existence. An incubator offers a collaborative environment, ready access to advice and business developing services, educational and networking opportunities, as well as support which many experts attribute to the success of incubated companies. Further information may be obtained at www.kbic.com.mt.
NANOTECHNOLOGY
St. Petersburg University to Open Nanotech Center in '08
St Petersburg State University (SPSU) is to inaugurate Russia's first Center for Nano-Scale Technologies, according to Professor Igor Gorlinsky, Director of the Project, and Pro-Rector for Research. The overall cost of the project is estimated at 130 million roubles. The Center’s key task will be the systematization of work in the field of new materials.
Missouri State Opens $17 Million Research Center
Once an abandoned feed mill, a $17-million research tower pairing Missouri State University scientists with private technology companies opened with a mission to foster new jobs and manufacturing in areas such as nanotechnology.
The opening marks the completion of the first phase of the Roy Blunt Jordan Valley Innovation Center, the renovation of the mill's tower to house advanced scientific instruments and lab space where Missouri State students and faculty can work with private corporations on research projects.
Research will be focused on nanotechnology and other materials science, as well as biomedical technology. There are six corporate partners now, from Missouri, Texas, Georgia and Massachusetts, many of them working on defense-related projects.
One such project is a $6.2 million grant from the Office of Naval Research to come up with carbon-based electronic components for satellites to protect them against blasts in space that could cripple satellite communications.
The center's focus is on producing research advances that can be turned into commercial products, which in turn will hopefully spur manufacturing nearby and create new jobs in the region, the center's executive director, Ryan Giedd, said.
A second phase will convert the rest of the mill building into a facility for making prototypes and advanced manufacturing technology. Due to be completed next year, that portion will be funded by $7.6 million in state and federal money.
About 50 people work in the center now, and the jobs will total between 200 and 300 once Phase II is done.
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