OTHER ELECTRONICS

UPDATE

May 2007

McIlvaine Company

www.mcilvainecompany.com

FSU Breaks Ground on Groundbreaking Building

FSU celebrated the groundbreaking of the new Materials Research Building in Tallahassee's Innovation Park.

The $17 million building, which is scheduled to be ready by fall 2008, will be a two-story, 44,000-square-foot facility that houses 13 laboratories for the design, processing and characterization of advanced materials and systems. When completed, it will house FSU's Center of Excellence in Advanced Materials, which was established in November 2006 through a $4 million grant from the State University System's Board of Governors.

The new facility also will be the first LEED-certified building to be constructed by FSU. LEED, short for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System, is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance, environmentally responsible buildings.

The new Materials Research Building will be located on Levy Avenue, adjacent to FSU's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Applied Superconductivity Center and Center for Advanced Power Systems, as well as the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. The new building's proximity to those facilities is seen as one of the advantages of the location.

Even before the establishment of the Center of Excellence in Advanced Materials, FSU already was recognized for the innovative efforts of several facilities devoted to materials science. Among them:

• The Center for Materials Research and Technology, better known as MARTECH (www.martech.fsu.edu), is an interdisciplinary center for education and research in materials science that has operated at FSU since 1986. Pulling in researchers from the fields of physics, chemistry, biological sciences and engineering, MARTECH focuses on magnetic, biological and hybrid micro- and nanotechnologies.

• The High-Performance Materials Institute (HPMI, http://hpmi.net/), operated by the College of Engineering, is a multidisciplinary research institute striving to sustain U.S. leadership and accelerate growth in advanced composites by making multifunctional composites the design choice for lightweight, high-performance engineered systems. The new Materials Research Building will serve as the headquarters for HPMI and the Center of Excellence in Advanced Materials, which recently was awarded to FSU by the Board of Governors based on an HPMI proposal. One focus of the institute's research that has drawn particular interest is its work with "buckypaper," a material 10 times lighter than steel but 250 times stronger. Buckypaper has shown promise in a variety of applications, including the development of aerospace structures, the production of more-effective body armor and armored vehicles, and the construction of next-generation computer displays.

• The Applied Superconductivity Center, which recently relocated to FSU from the University of Wisconsin, works closely with the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory to develop materials for the next generation of superconducting magnets. The center also develops new materials for instruments used in medical science.

Lenovo Starts Operations of New Production Center in Shanghai

The Lenovo Group has commenced operations of a new production center in Shanghai with the center to focus on production of own-brand notebooks, desktops and IT products for markets in Northern Asia, including the eastern part of China, according to a recent Chinese-language Sina.com report.

The new production center has a capacity to manufacture six million PCs a year.  Lenovo also runs production bases in Beijing, Shenzhen, Huiyang and Xiamen.

Foxconn  Considering High-Tech Industrial Park in Nanning, China

Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) is considering setting up a high-tech industrial park in Nanning, Guangxi Province (China) for IT, consumer electronics, energy and energy-saving industries.

Since Guangxi is located at the center area of the free trade zone of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and also due to the fact that Foxconn is building an industrial park in northern Vietnam, Foxconn is considering to take advantage of this by setting up an industrial park in Guangxi, the CNS report quoted Foxconn chairman Terry Gou as saying.

Jabil Licensed to Build Facility in City's Hi-tech Park

Jabil Corporation was awarded an investment certificate to build a US$100-million plant to assemble and test printed circuit boards in HCMC's Saigon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP), becoming the second largest project there, according to a report in The Saigon Times.

Jabil Vietnam Co. Ltd., the subsidiary of one of the world's largest electronics manufacturing services providers, will develop the factory on a five-hectare plot in the hi-tech park in two stages.

Under its investment plan, the factory will install and examine printed circuit boards, install systems and examine completed hi-tech products, manufacture precise plastic moulds as well as mainboards, network tools, telecom equipment and consumer electronics.

In the first stage, whose production will begin this September, the company will pour some US$30 million to manufacture some 3.5 million products a year. The second stage will start after 2010, when the investment increases to a total US$100 million while output doubles to seven million products a year.

Jabil Vietnam is the first foreign-invested project licensed into the hi-tech park since early this year.

Up to now, a total of 24 projects have been licensed into SHTP with combined pledged capital of more than US$1.36 billion.

Clarion Breaks Ground for Science, Tech Center

Clarion's new $36.4 million Science and Technology Center is expected to be completed in spring 2009.

The groundbreaking was the second of the 2006-07 academic year, following last fall's groundbreaking for the biotechnology business development center. The facility is designed to establish and grow high technology, family-sustaining jobs in the region. The incubator facility of the CUBBDC will be a catalyst for the formation of local biotech start-ups and form a unique partnership with Clarion's science and technology center.

The state has approved budget funding of $33.7 million to construct the facility, scheduled for completion in spring 2009, with Clarion University to raise $2.7 million in matching funds.

The project is expected to be one of the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified science buildings in Pennsylvania. LEED certification requires meeting national standards and reflects facilities that best meet sustainable environmental energy concerns.

The building will house many core programs - mathematics, chemistry, physics, geography, geology, molecular biology/biotechnology, archeology, nanotechnology, and anthropology among others. Every Clarion University student will take some classes in the new building.

The building will house 11 collaborative research laboratories, 25 teaching laboratories, a state-of-the-art computer lab, a science museum, a cold room, and individual resource centers for biology, chemistry, earth science, mathematics, and physics.

While provisions have been made for a greenhouse, that structure is not part of the center. The 98,000 square foot building also will house 55 offices. The current planetarium and auditorium will be renovated and add another 8,000 square feet to the complex. Smart classrooms will be available throughout the building with wireless Internet inside and outside, allowing students and professors to connect with the entire world through video, computers, and the Web.

Singapore Sets up Facility for Quantum Tech Research

Singapore poured over $98.5 million to build a research center for quantum technology.

The Research Center of Excellence on Quantum Information Science and Technology (QIST), located at the National University of Singapore, was funded by the Education Ministry and the National Research Foundation.

The research center will focus on quantum technology — a new science that integrates physics, math and computer science to enable faster and smaller computers, and also touted to secure the transmission of information such that hacking computers will be impossible.

QIST will focus research on new niche areas of quantum technology such as quantum cryptography, a new field of study that makes systems more secure for over-the-air transmission of sensitive information.

McIlvaine Company,

Northfield, IL 60093-2743

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