| Appreciation for
Senator Jim Alesi |
Reception Held for Commerce and
Economic Development Committee Chair
Monday evening, November 28th, a dozen RRPC members joined
with about the same number from the Rochester Tooling and Machining
Association for lively conversation and Albany insights with
Senator James Alesi concerning economic development, manufacturing,
and New York State's investment in High Technology. Alesi,
of Rochester's 55th Senate District, has been championing investment
in high technology business and workforce training in our region
for 13 years.
|
| Future of Light Symposium |
| Boston Conference Drew 250 from Industry
and Academia
Trying to summarize this 9th
Annual Symposium in a few paragraphs is a challenge.
Venture Capital
John W. Adams, Chairman and Founder; Adams
Harkness, gave a Photonics Investment Outlook, which
was glum concerning the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 . The legislation,
which adds levels of regulation, compliance, and reporting to
corporation finance, has essentially strangled the small IPO market
(less than $50M) by adding a tremendous cost burden for any firm
preparing to go public. The market has responded with a greater
number of mergers and reverse mergers (eg, VirtualScopics
Merger with ConsultAmerica,
Inc. earlier this month) Adams told the assembled that his
firm had merged with a nominated advisor on The
London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM),
Cannacord,
and suggested that American technology firms may have to explore
such international alternatives to NASDAQ if they hope to offer
public stock at less than $50M capitalization.
Policy
Michael Lebby, Executive Director; OIDA
Gave a Global Perspective of the Photonics Industry,
focusing mostly upon consumer product-driven applications, including
products selling or forecast to sell into the many millions of
units, including sensors, cell-phone cameras, optical mice, and
displays. His hot topic issue dealt with the overcapacity of Indium
Phosphate Foundries and the role OIDA might be able to play
in guiding the industry, "toward a more profitable foundry
model using our experience, our influence with government agencies,
and our contacts with the venture-capital community."
Military
Gregory S. Shelton, Vice President of Engineering
Technology & Quality; Raytheon
Company spoke about Advanced Photonics in Military Applications.
Shelton noted that the $20B Raytheon has 50,000 suppliers (sic),
25,000 of which he deemed "high tech." 25% of Raytheon's
business is in Photonics, according to the VP. He divides that
business into sensing, processing, and integration disciplines.
Shelton's perspective touched upon directed energy weapons, solid
state lasers, LADAR, expanded and extensive use of the electromagnetic
spectrum, integrated cross-spectrum sensors, both IR and photonic.
Raytheon, Shelton maintained, is engaged in "changing what
is seeable." Among the sci-fi-turned-reality applications
he discussed briefly were an "LCD paint on wall" ; holographic
battlefield visioning; and a 100Ghz "stun beam" that
temporarily disables cambatants with no lasting effects. Shelton
specifically stated that Raytheon is looking for expertise in
high speed laser communication.
Industrial
Robert Deuster, Chairman & Chief Executive
Officer; Newport Corporation
covered Industrial Applications and a Future Outlook for Photonics.
Deuster outlined the corporation's "make, manage and measure
light" philosophy, into which Newport is investing $820M
in 2005. With substantial growth forecast in Microelectronics,
Life & Health Sciences, and Industrial applications, the CEO
also covered Newport's interest in pico, femto and attophysics,
atomic imaging, thin disk lasers, fiber lasers, which he sees
displacing CO2 and excimer, multiphoton microscopy, and advances
in a variety of light sources, including laser pumps and the cost-effective
light engines of the future. It may have been me, but when Deuster
was finished detailing Newport's wide array of competencies, capabilities,
markets, and research, half the room seemed to have an "aw,
what's the use, Newport's got it covered" aura.
Telecom and Broadband
Ed Murphy, a Chief Technology Officer with JDSU
discussed The Future of Optical Communications. Murphy
described technology and specific devices enabling "agile
optical networks" which will, in the JDSU vision, displace
today's parallel SONET-switched networks. Driven by consumer demand,
the optical networks envisioned by JDSU will be reconfigurable,
scalable, robust, light-based vehicles for 40 gigabit data rates,
enabled, in part by low-cost ROADMs
(reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers), tunable lasers,
and far greater reach extensions. Encouraged by the JDSU vision
of the future of bandwidth, I think that all of the TREO and Blackberry
users in the room started shopping on their handhelds for large-screen
plasma TV's during this presentation.
Solid State Lighting
Perhaps the most compelling talks came late in
the afternoon from two young CEO's, Charles Swoboda, Chairman
& Chief Executive Officer; Cree
Corporation: Enabling Technologies for Future Optoelectronic
Devices, and George Mueller, Founder & Chairman; Color
Kinetics Inc.on Next Generation Solid State Lighting,
Illumination and Display Systems. The two together made a
very entertaining and convincing case for nothing less than the
complete overhaul and dramatic transformation of the the lighting
industry, enabled by low-power, high output LED's.
- 80% of all traffic signals are now LED.
- 33% of all light bulbs are changed annually.
- Lighting consumes 20% of U.S. power demand
LEDs have their own "law" (along the
lines of Moore's Law), dubbed “Haitz's Law” after
Dr. Roland Haitz who worked at HP/Agilent/Lumileds. From examining
the historical data, he showed that LEDs had been doubling in
brightness every 18 months since they were first commercialized
and that there seemed every expectation that this trend would
continue. According to Swoboda's intel, the shift for consumers
will begin to increase dramatically when LED's reach 80-100 lumens
per watt. So far, CREE has demonstrated mass-producable units
at 60 watts.
RRPC has been promised DVDs with the proceedings
and presentations from this year's Future of Light Symposium
as soon as they are avilable. Let us know if you are interested
in obtaining a copy. |
| Worldwide Events |
|
11 - 16 February 2006
Medical
Imaging
San Jose, CA
17 - 21 April 2006
Defense
& Security Symposium
Orlando, FL
12 - 16 June 2006
Great
Lakes Photonics Symposium
Dayton, Ohio USA |
|
| Date Set for RRPC Annual Meeting |
Bob Breault of Breault Research Corporation
will be our Speaker
The 2006 RRPC Annual Meeting will be held once again in the
Golisano Building at RIT, February 15, 2006. Attendance is open
to members and non-members alike – members with one guest
are free, others may attend for a nominal fee. Please contact
Rick Rivers (rick@riversorg.com or 585-586-6906) if you plan
to attend. Members can expect a reminder by mail soon.
Our speaker is internationally recognized for his enthusiastic
evangelism of economic development work based upon Michael Porter's
Cluster models. In addition to establishing and growing the
Arizona Optics Cluster, Breault also helped cohere the New York
and Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster. All that and he is
also CEO of his own firm, Breault
Research Corporation.
|
| Company News |
Second Round Will Help Hot Start-up Stay On
Track
Lumetrics announced today that it has received an equity investment
of $1.34M from an investment consortium lead by Stonehenge Capital
of New York City along with New York State
Small Business Technology Investment Fund, and the Rochester
Angel Network.
The proceeds will be used for increased sales activities in
the company's primary medical and optics markets and for a substantial
increase in New Product Development.
Lumetrics produces a
novel light-based measuring system that was licensed from Eastman
Kodak in 2003. The company was introduced to this opportunity
as a result of High Technology of Rochester's effort to identify
licensing opportunities in larger local companies, and received
its initial seed capital from the the University Technology
Seed Fund (a Trillium Fund) and bridge financing from local
Angel Investors.
|
| Year-end Wrap Up! |
| Optics, Photonics & Imaging
2005
Lumetrics' Investment Caps a Stellar 2005 Year
in Optics for Rochester, with activity in everything from new
research and development dollars and facilities, to new contracts,
new acquisitions, business and building expansions, and new companies.
The result will be more opportunities for skilled workers in
optical, mechanical, electronic and laser engineering disciplines,
and for young people pursuing careers in the OPI industry. Business
conditions for nearly all of our members are good and some have
added extra shifts.
A sampling of the announcements from our industry in 2005 in
roughly chronological order:
-
University of Rochester's ongoing construction
of $30M BME /Optics facility slated to open in October 2006
- Laboratory for Laser Energetics' $73.5M in funding for 2005,
which included the construction of the Omega EP
-
Icuiti announced a Congressional grant
targeted at Special Operations Command (SOCOM) for their Video
Eyewear
-
Sydor Intruments' with their High Speed
“streak” camera, won two awards for their business
plan and continue to grow
-
Eyeon Therapeutics New Products / Growth
-
Eastman Kodak Digital Imaging Technology
continues its market eminence in digital photography
-
JML Optical Expanding into a new facility
/ growth (the move began this past Monday)
-
RIT / Bausch & Lomb Endowed Chair and
investment in Microsystems Engineering
- ITT Space Systems continues to grow in Rochester, with hundreds
of new hires
-
Optifab Optical Fabrication Trade Show
& Conference drew 175 exhibitors and hundreds of national/international
attendees
-
The Center for Optics Manufacturing, Dimension
Technologies and QED received Defense Appropriations Bill
Earmarks
-
Bausch & Lomb announced a $35 Million
Expansion of its Optics Center
-
Sydor Optics purchased new machinery and
added new jobs
-
CooperVision announced 300 new jobs in
manufacturing & shipping
-
Bausch & Lomb announced its Pure Vision
Lenses marketing push (based upon their unique technology)
-
Rochester Precision Optics announced it
$10M Investment, purchasing Eastman Kodak's Glass Optics Division
and establishing a new center for excellence in optics, with
as many as 100 new jobs forecast
-
Jenoptik announced a new Rochester office
with intent to grow in Rochester
-
New Scale Technologies received first round
funding
- University of Rochester had $2M in funding for "the use
of light in Biomedical Research" in the Commerce, Justice
and Science Bill signed by President Bush on November 22nd
-
Lumetrics received second round funding
Other good news during the year came from the Infotonics Technology
Center, Ariel Optics, Triptar, Syntec Technologies, Lucid and
other RRPC / PIANY members.
And the year isn't over yet! Congratulations to all of the
talented, hard-working, and visionary members of Rochester's
Optics, Photonics and Imaging Community.
|
| Government & Military Contracting |
| The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has issued a request
for information concerning the Ballistic Missile Defense System
Industrial Partnership (BMDS IP). Key investment areas mentioned
include Electro Optics/Infra-Red and Manufacturing processes.
Responses are due December 13th. |
| Changes and Recognition |
Stephen Jacobs was elected a Fellow
of the Optical Society of America at the Society's annual meeting
on October 17th, in Tuscon.
Bill Hawkins resigned as Infotonics
Technology Center's Chief Operating Officer, taking a job with
General Electric. Before working with Infotonics Hawkins managed
the Microelectronics Marking Center (MMC) within Xerox' Ink
Jet Business Unit (IJBU), a post he held beginning in 1992.
|
| Local OSA Chapter
Meetings |
|
Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 7:00 p.m.
UR, Center for Optoelectronics and Imaging
Donald Figer-
Space Telescope Science Institute
Advanced Detectors and Discoveries in Astronomy
Webpage.
|
| Contact
RRPC |
The Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster is an active
and growing collaborative organization. Efforts are under way on joint
training events, workforce development, collaborative advertising opportunities,
promoting the commercialization of intellectual property, and development
of our website to further facillitate business development for our members.
Join us! There are advantages to working together,
and we are interested in working with you. Send an email to us at membership@rrpc-ny.org.
To subscribe, to unsubscribe, to submit a news item or upcoming event,
to suggest a feature or column, or to offer feedback, contact Tom
Battley, at 585-329-4029.
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