OTHER ELECTRONICS & NANOTECHNOLOGY
UPDATE
November 2009
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Bosch Power Electronics Studies and Research Center Planned for Germany
Kyzen Sdn. Bhd. Inaugurates New Facility in Penang
Air Products Opens New Specialty Amines Plant in China
Groundbreaking Set for Nano School at Gateway
Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility Gets Stimulus Funds for Upgrades
Argonne Dedicates New Microscopy Facility at Center for Nanoscale Materials
Russia Invests in Nanotechnology
Innovation Park at Notre Dame Opens
Breaking Ground on Groundbreaking Research
The Bosch Group, the Reutlingen University of Applied Sciences, the University of Stuttgart, and the state of Baden-Württemberg will establish a center for power electronics studies and research. The Baden-Württemberg state government has given the project the go-ahead. Power electronics includes modules, components, and systems that are used in areas such as hybrid vehicles, but also in the renewable energy field, where they are part of photovoltaic systems.
The alliance is the first research and teaching network of its kind in Germany. Over a 10-year period, Bosch and the German state of Baden-Württemberg will invest more than €25 million ($37.4 million) in new teaching posts and infrastructure. The Robert Bosch Center for Power Electronics is to be based in Reutlingen and Stuttgart.
"Despite economically difficult times, we are investing in the future, strengthening Germany as a business and educational location, and assuming social responsibility," said Wolfgang Malchow, the Bosch board of management member responsible for human resources and social welfare. He regards the center as a logical complement to the Bosch Group's activities in Reutlingen.
Volkmar Denner, the Bosch board of management member responsible for automotive electronics, said: "In Reutlingen, we are investing some €600 million ($898 million) in the construction of a new semiconductor manufacturing facility and a testing center. Over the next few years, the location will need highly qualified graduates capable of tackling the challenges for power electronics in areas such as electro-mobility."
On the one hand, this agreement to set up and operate a center is a milestone in the development of Reutlingen's University of Applied Sciences. On the other hand, it breaks new ground in establishing an alliance between a university of applied sciences and a full-blown university. The result will be a model research and teaching network offering bachelor and master degree courses and well as a joint PhD program," says Peter Niess, president of the Reutlingen University of Applied Sciences.
Kyzen, the provider of environmentally responsible precision cleaning products for electronics and high-technology manufacturing operations, announces that years of planning and months of hard work have paid off - Dato' Lee Kah Choon, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Invest Penang, honored Kyzen and its Malaysian subsidiary Kyzen Sdn. Bhd. by inaugurating its newest facility in Penang, Malaysia.
"We are excited to be in Bayan Lepas, Penang today at the end of a nine-month journey since the creation of Kyzen Sdn. Bhd.," said Kyle Doyel, Kyzen's President and CEO.
"This new state-of-the-art facility is the only one of its kind in Malaysia. It is designed to meet the needs of our high-technology customers here in Penang and throughout Southeast Asia with sales, technical and training support, and an application and evaluation laboratory. The facility features a large-scale manufacturing capability to produce Kyzen products has begun manufacturing.
"After 15 years of supporting and supplying our customers in Malaysia by visiting from abroad, we are very pleased to put down roots here," said R. Erik Miller, Kyzen's Asia Managing Director. "Our customers are thrilled with the local manufacturing and significantly reduced supply chain that the Penang facility offers. Demand for the eco-friendly cleaning technology that Kyzen provides is growing, and as the world returns to growth and prosperity, the Kyzen team is ready, willing and able to meet the challenges ahead."
Air Products has opened its new specialty amines plant in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. The facility complements its existing local capabilities to support customers in the growing polyurethane additives and epoxy markets.
Located in the Nanjing Chemical Industry Park (NCIP), the new state-of-the-art specialty amines plant is a multi-reactor, multi-purpose facility designed to manufacture many of the amine chemistries marketed by the business globally. Air Products has already built and operates two large air separation plants and a pipeline system to serve customers in the NCIP.
"China is a high growth region for the world and for Air Products. China's growth and domestic development in key markets and industries, such as construction, coatings, and automobile production, make this an important place for us to be focused on for growth and new business. We are honored to build our new capability in the world-class Nanjing Chemical Industry Park and participate in the development of Jiangsu Province," said John E. McGlade, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Air Products at the opening ceremony. "The new specialty amines plant is another strategic investment that Air Products has made in China to better serve our customers with the range of performance materials and technologies that meet global performance standards and enable local companies to continue to grow and support development of their industries."
The new specialty amines plant has significantly strengthened the supply chain capabilities of Air Products' Performance Materials business in China and throughout Asia. Other strategic capabilities that the company has built for its Performance Materials business include a technology center in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Industrial Park; a triethylenediamine (TEDA) manufacturing facility for polyurethane additives in Changzhou; warehouses in Changzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Nanjing; plus a strong local team to serve both China and Asian customers.
The plant has also enhanced Air Products' ability to supply differentiated products which can be formulated locally to meet local needs. The initial focus will be on several performance-oriented products marketed by Air Products' epoxy additive and polyurethane additive product lines, including the Polycat® and Dabco® series of amine catalysts, and Ancamine® , Ancamide® and Sunmide® series of epoxy curing agents used in diverse industries, such as coatings, inks, adhesives, construction, appliance and automotive.
Air Products (NYSE: APD) serves customers in industrial, energy, technology and healthcare markets worldwide with a unique portfolio of atmospheric gases, process and specialty gases, performance materials, and equipment and services. Founded in 1940, Air Products has built leading positions in key growth markets such as semiconductor materials, refinery hydrogen, home healthcare services, natural gas liquefaction, and advanced coatings and adhesives. The company is recognized for its innovative culture, operational excellence and commitment to safety and the environment. In fiscal 2009, Air Products had revenues of $8.3 billion, operations in over 40 countries, and 18,900 employees around the globe. For more information, visit www.airproducts.com.
Officials from UNC-Greensboro and N.C. A&T State University broke ground for their shared Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering at the Gateway University Research Park on Nov. 9.
School officials have the plans for the 100,000-square-foot building and how the facility will fulfill the JSNN's mission to educate students in the rapidly advancing sciences related to nanotechnology. The school's academic program is launching Professional Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Nanoscience and will develop degree programs in Nanoengineering.
The school also intends to work collaboratively with private companies and develop the Triad's nanotechnology industry cluster. University officials expect the JSNN and Gateway University Research Park to contribute as much as $250 million to the regional economy over the next 20 years.
“The Nanoscience and Nanoengineering industries are a direct pathway to the future of major technological breakthroughs in the areas of nanobiology, nanometrology, nanocomposite materials and bioelectronics," said John Merrill, Gateway's executive director of. "Gateway University Research Park is once again making history by positioning the Triad region for growth in these arenas.”
The Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility (CNF) received $1.38 million in federal stimulus funds to help with equipment upgrades.
CNF is one of 14 members of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN) of user facilities for nanofabrication. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has allocated $10 million to NNIN to spread over the 14 sites for various needs. CNF's portion is an add-on to its regular National Science Foundation grant of $2.68 million per year.
"Replacing old equipment is always a real challenge, and it's not something that people get excited about," said Sandip Tiwari, director of NNIN and Cornell's Charles Mellowes Professor in Engineering.
The grant will cover:
Tiwari noted that while economic times have challenged every aspect of the university, CNF has done a good job living within its means. He added that CNF maintains $74 million to $100 million worth of equipment. Even if the estimated life span for each piece is 10 years, it is still a sizeable sum to replace each year. The center has reached out to industry partners in the past to help them supplement equipment at CNF.
"The ARRA support will make things good for a longer period of time," Tiwari said. "It is just a perfect thing for use within NNIN."
To date, Cornell has received 121 ARRA awards, totaling more than $99.6 million over two years.
The Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory dedicated its new scanning probing microscopy building recently during its annual users conference. The new building will house a new scanning probe microscope that measures spin-polarized electrons on surfaces.
"The spin-polarized scanning probing microscope (LT-SPM) is a wonderful addition to the many tools available to researchers at the CNM," said interim CNM director Derrick Mancini. "Nanomagnetism is a burgeoning field, and the LT-SPM will provide the most cutting-edge technology for this research."
Nanomagnetism research using the LT-SPM may lead to more energy-efficient motors, advanced information storage, processing prototype devices, advanced medical therapy and biomagnetic sensing concepts. The LT-SPM is a multi-functional scanning probe microscope devoted to the high-resolution properties of spin-polarized surfaces at high magnetic fields (9 T) and low temperatures (4.2 K). This state-of-the-art instrument expands the CNM programs in nanomagnetism and nanoferroelectrics.
With the spin-polarized capabilities and the ability to characterize insulating samples, this instrument will propel the CNM to the forefront of science using scanning probes to pursue fundamental materials research. A new building was constructed adjacent to the CNM to house the LT-SPM, which requires a highly stable operating environment that is free of acoustic and vibratory interference. The microscope also produces relatively large stray magnetic fields that are incompatible with instruments in the CNM, which was designed specifically to be free of magnetic fields.
The LT-SPM is a necessary to tool for important scientific research, so a new building was designed to specifically hold the machine and place it far enough away from the CNM that the magnetic fields would not pose a problem to other instruments in the building.
Construction on the building was finished at the end of September and the facility will be ready for occupancy by the end of fall.
The building cost $1.5 million and was paid for Institutional General Plant Project funds from the laboratory.
Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, pledged to channel $10.6 billion into the development of nanotechnology by the year 2015. The President was speaking at the opening of an international nanotechnology forum in Moscow on October 6.
Medvedev predicted that the sales of nanotechnology product in Russia could reach $30 billion by that same year and that he hoped to “make nanotechnology, the nano industry, one of the most powerful sectors of the Russian economy.” In the speech, he acknowledged that a lack of trained personnel was the largest factor currently affecting the growth of the Russian nanotechnology industry.
Notre Dame administrators joined local and state officials to cut the ribbon on what's being called "future" of South Bend's economy. After nearly a decade of planning, and 364 days of construction, Innovation Park at Notre Dame is officially up and running.
The $13 million, 55,000 square foot building is located on 12 acres of land just south of the Notre Dame campus. It includes customizable office space, more than 30,000 square feet of laboratory space, and state of the art conference and meeting areas linked by a dark fiber network with neatly unlimited bandwidth.
Innovation Park is designed to link researchers with private businesses through the development of creative technological ideas. In short, ideas are conceptualized at the Park, then transformed into products with real world applications.
Innovation Park will serve a wide variety of research interests and researchers, including the Midwest Institute of Nanotechnology Development (MIND) comprised of scientists from Notre Dame, Purdue University, Penn State University, The University of Illinois, and The University of Michigan. MIND is focused on creating the next generation of computer chip on a "nanotech"--or microscopic--scale.
Additional research efforts are already underway at the Innovation Park site.
One Notre Dame MBA student is now working on solar cell phone charging technology, and SlipStream Projects — a Mishawaka based start-up company--is crafting a more efficient hybrid-electric engine.
Both hope to market their findings to private businesses from around the world who are now being courted to occupy research and development space in Innovation Park and its sister site Ignition Park, located in South Bend's former Studebaker Corridor.
Innovation Park administrators hope future projects will include several Fortune 100 companies, focusing on everything from engineering and biotechnology to orthopedics and nanotechnology.
So far, few companies have signed on to "rent out" space in the new building, aside from Konica-Minolta, who showed off a state-of-the-art business center built inside Innovation Park.
The State of Indiana did its part to help "speed up" that transformation, approving $10 million dollars in additional funding for Innovation Park.
$8.4 million of the funding will go directly to Notre Dame to support nanoelectronics equipment and personnel. Of that funding, about $670,000 will be used to support faculty support and research efforts. The remaining $1.6 million will go to Purdue University to support its efforts in connection with MIND.
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