High Tech Ceramics News articles from December 2002

High Tech Ceramics News archives from December 2002

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS: Sputtering Targets Take Off.
December 1, 2002... While serving as critical raw materials for the fabrication of a variety of highly engineered thin-film products-from integrated circuits to window coatings-sputtering targets are themselves high value-added advanced materials. Various aspects...

PROCESSING AND TECHNOLOGIES New Life for an Old HIP.
December 1, 2002... EPSI (Engineered Pressure Systems, Inc.), a world leader in custom-engineered high-pressure solutions, increases the reliability and productivity of older Hot Isostatic Press (HIP) systems with a furnace upgrade. By replacing the furnace heat...

METROLOGY AND ANALYSIS: Dryer Produces Uniform Particles.
December 1, 2002... The Micron dryer from Hosokawa Bepex combines milling, drying, and classifying in a single high-capacity unit to produce free-flowing powders with uniform particle size and moisture content. The system is also capable of solvent retrieval from...

POWDERS & NANO CERAMICS: Commercializing ORNL's Nanotech Inventions.
December 1, 2002... In a move that could be a new model for commercializing government research, a small firm has cut a deal with a major national lab to share nanotechnology-related intellectual property. Nanotech Capital, LLC, a group of four entrepreneurs based...

FIBERS & COMPOSITES: Starfire Receives NASA Award.
December 1, 2002... Starfire Systems, located in the Saratoga Technology and Energy Park, has received a Phase I SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) award from NASA to support continued research and development into low-cost polymer interface coatings for...

ZIRCAR Intros Refractory Sheet.
December 1, 2002... ZIRCAR Refractory Composites, Inc., Florida, New York, has introduced a new refractory sheet, Type RSLE-57, a low-expansion, high-strength reinforced silica matrix composite. The material was designed for use as a high strength insulator in...

DIAMOND PRODUCTS: Coatings for Severe Wear.
December 1, 2002... Researchers Suri A. Sastri, Nilesh Gunda, and Richard Cooke (Surmet Corp., 33 B St., Burlington, MA 01803) and Santosh Jha and Vimal Desai (AMPAC, University of Central Florida, 12424 Research Pkwy., Orlando, FL 32826) have been investigating...

Argonne Develops Low Friction Films.
December 1, 2002... Carbon-based coatings combine many attractive properties that make them good candidates for a wide range of critical engineering applications. DLC films have much to offer for future tribological applications. Over the years, great strides have...

FILTERS & MEMBRANES: Companies Form Filter Subsidiary.
December 1, 2002... IBIDEN Co, Saint-Gobain Ceramics & Plastics, and Toyota Industries Co. recently announced the launch of mass production of particulate filters for diesel engines, along with the opening of the production site of their joint subsidiary. IBIDEN...

FUEL CELLS: HC Starck Moves on InDEC Buy.
December 1, 2002... H.C. Starck and the current shareholders of InDEC B.V., ECN, and Planet Capital have signed a non-binding letter of intent. H.C. Starck intends to acquire a majority shareholding in InDEC, a Dutch fuel cell company, with the option of acquiring...

Commercial SOFC Is Almost Here.
December 1, 2002... Berkeley Lab researchers have developed a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) that promises to generate electricity as cheaply as the most efficient gas turbine. Their innovation, which paves the way for pollution-free power generators that serve...

Micro SOFC for Handheld Electronics.
December 1, 2002... Lilliputian Systems, Inc. (Woburn, MA) has received an ATP Award titled "Micro Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) Based Power Supplies for Handheld Electronics," the details of which are as follows: * Project duration: 2 years * Total...

Full Spectrum Solar Nearer Reality.
December 1, 2002... Researchers in the Materials Sciences Division (MSD) of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working with crystal-growing teams at Cornell University and Japan's Ritsumeikan University, have learned that the band gap of the semiconductor...

ELECTRONIC CERAMICS: IBM Makes Smallest Silicon Transistor.
December 1, 2002... IBM has announced the world's smallest working silicon transistor. With this transistor IBM has been able to push silicon to limits on a molecular scale not previously achieved. At 6 nanometers in length, this new transistor is at least 10...

Ramtron in Licensing Agreement.
December 1, 2002... Ramtron International Corp. announced that Texas Instruments (TI) has produced a 64-million-bit (Mb) ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) chip further validates Ramtron's patented FRAM technology as a foundation for next-generation nonvolatile memory. With...

SUPERCONDUCTORS Record for AMSC Wire.
December 1, 2002... American Superconductor Corp. announced it achieved reproducible results in electrical performance over 10-meter lengths of its second generation, coated conductor composite, high temperature superconductor (HTS) wires that are significantly...

GE Hosts DOE Visit.
December 1, 2002... Officials from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) met on October 28, 2002, with representatives of GE Power Systems and the GE Global Research Center in Schenectady, New York, to kick off a program to develop a new, high-efficiency generator...

INDUSTRY NEWS: Ceradyne Receives Armor Order.
December 1, 2002... Ceradyne, Inc. recently announced that a government agency has ordered approximately $7 million of the company's ceramic body armor ballistic plates to protect certain elite U.S. military personnel. This order is the largest delivery order to...

CALENDAR.
December 1, 2002... January 26-31, 2003. 27th Annual Cocoa Beach Conference and Exposition, International Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Composites. Contact: American Ceramic Society, P.O. Box 6136, Westerville, OH 43086-6136; Tel: 614/890-4700, Fax:...