News
ITW Acquires Opto Diode Corporation
[Glenview, IL] Illinois Tools Works Inc. (NYSE: ITW) announced today that it has acquired the assets of Opto Diode Corporation. Opto Diode specializes in the manufacture of LED’s, IRLED’s, LED arrays, silicon photodiodes, gallium aluminum arsenide photodiodes and optoelectronic assemblies. Opto Diode offers a broad range of standard products that are primarily in metal packages for high reliability. Opto Diode also specializes in providing custom solutions including line sources, point sources, custom geometry photodiodes, custom packages and high power LED and IRLED arrays. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Opto Diode will be a wholly owned business unit of ITW and part of the company's Opto Electronics Group. In accordance with ITW's decentralized business structure, Opto Diode will maintain its brand name and operate as a separate business. It will be closely aligned with the other companies of the Opto Electronics Group including Lumex and Cal Sensors. Opto Diode has its sales, operations and manufacturing located in Newbury Park outside of Los Angeles, California. For more information on Opto Diode go to www.optodiode.com.
“Opto Diode is an excellent strategic fit for the ITW Opto Electronics Group,” said Ron Schmidt, General Manager of Lumex and Manager of the Group. “Opto Diode has a long history of high performance products in the marketplace and sophisticated packaging capabilities. Their addition to the Group strengthens all of the companies in it. Lumex will benefit from their strong illumination and indication products and Cal Sensors will benefit from their sensor development and manufacturing capabilities. By the same token, Opto Diode will be able to benefit from Lumex’s broad and deep penetration into the electronics marketplace and Cal Sensors long experience with best in class emitting and detecting products.”
The ITW Opto Electronics Group is a premier source of opto-components to enable designers of demanding circuits to fine-tune their specifications for maximum performance and precision. Together the Group is capable of offering OEM designers application-specific solutions from the chip level all the way to packaged devices involving complete circuits.
“Becoming part of ITW gives Opto Diode additional marketing, R&D and manufacturing resources. These resources will increase Opto Diode’s ability to offer complete solutions to the marketplace”, said Russ Dahl, General Manager of Opto Diode Corp.
Typical applications for Opto Diode’s products include photo-electric controls; medical, scientific and industrial florescence; guided missile systems, ophthalmology, LED based tracking systems for surgery, vending machines and aviation lighting.
Lumex is a designer, manufacturer and distributor of user interface technology. Lumex offers thousands of high-efficiency, state-of-the-art optoelectronic components, devices and displays, with an emphasis on both semi-custom and custom design solutions. Since its inception in 1980, Lumex has been established as a global organization offering application-specific solutions with the manufacturing efficiencies normally associated only with volume operations. Lumex is the founding member of the Group.
Lumex is headquartered in Palatine, Illinois and Chu Dung, Hsin Chu County, Taiwan, ROC, with a Sales and Operations center near Frankfurt, Germany. Manufacturing facilities are located in Illinois, Taiwan and China with distributors throughout North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim. Lumex received its initial ISO 9001 registration in 1996. For more information on Lumex go to www.lumex.com.
Cal Sensors, the other member of the Group, is the leading manufacturer of standard and customized lead selenide (PbSe) and lead sulfide (PbS) infrared detectors, infrared arrays, and infrared emitters. The detectors are sensitive in the 1-5.5 micron wavelength region and are used in spectroscopic, imaging, medical, automotive exhaust, gas detection and moisture analysis instruments, non-contact temperature measurement, flame detection and combustion control. For more information on Cal Sensors go to www.calsensors.com.
Lumex, Inc. and Cal Sensors are Illinois Tool Works Inc. Companies (NYSE:ITW). With $16.2 billion in revenues, ITW is a diversified and value-added manufacturer of highly engineered components and industrial systems and consumables. The Company consists of approximately 825 business units in 52 countries and employs some 60,000 people. In 2007, ITW had more than 14,000 unexpired patents and pending patent applications worldwide, including 2,400 U.S. patents and 900 pending U.S. applications. ITW typically ranks in the top 100 of patent issuers in the U.S. More information can be found at www.itw.com. Lumex, Inc., Cal Sensors and Opto Diode Corporation are Trademarks of Illinois Tool Works Inc.
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