Friday 1 April 2005

New Zealand Technology Showcased In United States

The April issue of Semiconductor International, is featuring New Zealand technology on its front cover and in its lead article. Semiconductor International is the largest publication targeting the semiconductor industry worldwide, with a circulation of 50,000. The technology was developed by New Zealand nanotechnology company, Nano Cluster Devices Ltd ( www.nanoclusterdevices.com.). Nanotechnology is an emerging field that is widely seen as having as great an importance as biotechnology and information technology. Nanotechnology will have tremendous impacts in these fields as well as in electronics, medicine and many others

NCD Chief Operating Officer, Dr Allan Miller, said "this is a big breakthrough for Nano Cluster Devices. This publication recognises the tremendous importance of NCD's technology and puts it in front of all the biggest players in one of NCD's key target markets." NCD's nanowires can be used as the key components in transistors or as interconnects between devices on silicon chips. Nanowires therefore have the potential to enable much smaller and faster computers than those possible today.

NCD's technology is also being showcased at several high profile international meetings over the next few months.

NCD is one of only a handful of companies worldwide whose technologies have been selected by a panel of industry experts for the Technology Innovation Showcase (TIS) to be held in conjunction with the SEMICON West conference in San Francisco in July. TIS is a presentation format that allows the best new technologies to be showcased in front of the entire semiconductor industry, which gathers annually at SEMICON West. NCD Executive Director Dr Simon Brown says that "This is really a coup. This provides NCD with an international profile that money couldn't buy."

Furthermore NCD has been chosen to present its technology at the prestigious 2005 NSTI Nanotechnology Conference and Trade Show in Los Angeles in early May 2005. This is the largest Nanotechnology conference of the year, with a heavy emphasis on business opportunities in this globally significant field. The Nano Science and Technology Institute (NSTI) is a key player in the international nanotechnology scene, with linkages to many major corporations.

Dr Brown will present NCD's technology at both NSTI and TIS.

END Nanocluster Devices

About NanoCluster Devices Ltd.

Nano Cluster Devices Ltd, formed in early 2003, has developed novel methods for taking clusters of atoms and forming them into electrically conducting wires and has established a comprehensive Patent Portfolio based on these methods. The Company, funded by prominent New Zealand investors, raised $NZ2.75 million in its initial round and is strategically located in Christchurch, the Silicon Valley of the South. As a result, Nano Cluster Devices has access to top researchers, facilities and qualified employee base through its affiliation with local universities and a comprehensive nanotechnology research and development culture that has some of the best available equipment (funded by the MacDiarmid Institute Centre of Research Excellence). More information is available on the Company's website at www.nanoclusterdevices.com.

Gordon Campbell: On John Key’s Agenda For The Nation

There seemed to be three main components to John Key’s speech :

a) tax cuts largely paid for by a hike in GST
b) mining in national parks and on conservation land, while building more roads.
c) giving firms easier access to the r&d from Crown Research Institutes, so that business can continue to get the taxpayer to pick up the tab for the research that keeps them competitive.

After all, corporate welfare is always such a blessed thing – its only social welfare that corrodes enterprise and ambition. More>>