Illinois Tool Works, Inc. (NYSE: ITW), a diversified manufacturer of highly engineered components, has purchased three photonics companies over the past five years: Lumex in 2004, Cal Sensors in 2007, and Opto Diode Corp. in 2008. Now, ITW has brought together the three business units to form the ITW Photonics Group, saying "the synergy of these industry frontrunners provides an unsurpassed range of photonic capabilities within a broad spectrum of markets."
Lumex, Cal Sensors, and Opto Diode are all listed as business units on the ITW Photonics Group website, where the group's launch is announced. An article in EE Times, titled "Illinois Tool Works aims to become photonics powerhouse," quotes ITW Photonics' group general manager Cary Moreth as saying, "our photonics expertise now spans the entire spectrum of wavelengths." According to EE Times, Illinois Tool projects that its ITW Photonics Group will register double-digit growth through 2015 via acquisitions and R&D aimed at taking over photonic development projects from its customers.
A pioneer in optoelectronics, Lumex (Palatine, IL) claims to offer the broadest range of high efficiency, high performance LEDs and LCDs in the industry and has a focus on semi-custom and custom designs.
Cal Sensors (Santa Rosa, CA) designs and manufacturers standard and customized lead selenide and lead sulfide infrared detectors, emitters, and arrays.
Opto Diode (Newbury Park, CA) specializes in the manufacture of LEDs, IRLEDs, LED arrays, silicon photodiodes, gallium aluminum arsenide photodiodes and optoelectronic assemblies.
The EE Times article reports that two recent design wins by ITW combined technologies from all three companies. For instance, an anesthesiology design included an emitter and detector from Cal Sensors for gas analysis, an LCD display from Lumex, and LED indicators and an electro-optical assembly from Opto-Diode.
The ITW Photonics Group will target a number of markets including aerospace, communications, general lighting, industrial controls, medical, military, test and measurement, and security. Combining the three companies, ITW Photonics Group has a global manufacturing footprint with locations in North America, Japan, Taiwan, China and Thailand. Each business unit is available to provide all levels of engineering, prototyping, manufacturing and consulting, ranging from standard components to fully integrated design solutions.
Illinois Tool Works has annual revenue of $16.2 billion, and more than 850 business units in 52 countries around the world.
