These new products increase our addressable market by an order of magnitude

Nanometrics’ newest product for HB-LED process control is the RPMBlue. This is targeted at production control of Gallium Nitride (GaN)-based blue HB-LEDs that are increasingly used in LCD back-lighting. The system has been optimized for industry-leading throughput of up to 80 two-inch GaN wafers per hour.

Heptagon, the Finland-based developer of wafer-scale micro-optics, announced that it has raised over $22m in new equity financing. Most of this financing is coming from a new syndicate led by GGV Capital. Heptagon’s current investors, including Innovations Kapital of Sweden, Innovacom of France and Nokia Growth Partners have also participated in this latest round.

“Heptagon has a truly unique and proven value proposition: Optics which are glass-like in quality, being lead-free reflow and Telcordia compatible, but manufactured in the same wafer-scale format as the CMOS image sensor, LED and VCSEL technologies we support. This technology allows us to quickly ramp from several millions to several tens of millions of components per month and enables our customers to benefit from wafer-scale integration of optics with semiconductors,” says Chuck Milligan, Heptagon’s CEO. “This is leading to exponential growth in the demand for our products in applications such as CMOS Image sensing. We have introduced several new products this year, including 2 and 3 megapixel camera lenses. These new products increase our addressable market by an order of magnitude and therefore drive the need for a significant capacity expansion for which part of this new equity investment will be used.”

“We are extremely pleased,” Chuck continues, “to have been able to raise this investment despite the currently challenged investment environment. This is a testament to our strong leadership position in this industry-changing technology. We are also very excited with the quality and commitment of our new investors. GGV Capital and partners have a fantastic track record and will add great experience and knowledge of consumer electronics and Asian manufacturing to Heptagon’s investor base and board.”