Philips Electronics confirmed closure of the deal, as announced on 9 January 2006, to transfer Philips' optical pick-up (OPU) business unit to Arima Devices, an affiliated company of Arima Computer, a Taiwanese group.

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As a result, Philips holds a 12% share in Arima Devices. The Dutch company also announced that it has completed the merger of Philips Mobile Display Systems with Toppoly Optoelectronics of Taiwan to form a mobile display company. The company is named TPO and it's principal shareholders are Compal Electronics (25.1%) and Philips (17.5%).

Leoni, a German cable and wiring systems manufacturer, will acquire Studer at a price translating to about 105 million euros. With sales of about 84 million euros in the 2005 financial year and approximately 350 employees, Studer, founded in 1939 is one of the five largest Swiss cable manufacturers.

Varioptic, the French liquid lens company, has closed the second tranche of its most recent funding round, bringing the total of this round to 17,4 millions euros. Varioptic pioneers in designing and manufacturing electrically controlled optical liquid lenses for optical designers. Founded in 2002, Varioptic is located in Lyon (France) and headed by Etienne Paillard, CEO.

Fuel cell component company Bac2 has secured £500,000 investment funding, enabling it to further develop ElectroPhen, an electrically conductive plastic. This investment money is in addition to DTI grant funding of £240,000 awarded to a six member consortium, lead by Bac2, to optimise its ElectroPhen material for use in fuel cell components. The British company is now in the process of exploiting the material commercially with patents pending in Europe, America and Japan.

Elron Electronic Industries announced that A.M.T. - Advanced Metal Technologies-, an Elron group company, has completed a $14 million financing led by Shamrock Israel Growth Fund. Elron is investing an aggregate of $5 million in this financing round in which other existing shareholders also participated. AMT develops, markets and licenses advanced technologies for amorphous and nano-crystalline materials, for a wide range of commercial applications. AMT operates together with its group companies, creating innovative solutions for applications mainly for electrical heating, sensoring (authentication and coding solutions), electronic shielding and electronic components.

Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Litrex are paving the way for the production of a new generation of high resolution polymer organic light emitting displays (P-Oled) through the development of an inkjet printing solution capable of producing P-Oled displays at up to 200 pixels per inch (ppi). Cambridge Display Technology is a pioneer in the development of light emitting polymers (P-Oled). Litrex develops precision inkjet systems for color displays and electronics. Litrex is based in Pleasanton, CA and was acquired by ULVAC in 2005, after a period of joint ownership between CDT and ULVAC.

DesignAdvance Systems, a developer of design automation software for users of EDA and MCAD tools, announced its entrance into the European PCB design market with the appointment of Cadlog as its distribution partner. Cadlog, based in Rome, Italy, supplies design tools and services for PCB and electronics industries in Italy and Southern Europe.
Cadlog will provide PCB designers in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland with DesignAdvance products and technical support.

OLED-T, a UK-based manufacturer of organic light emitting diode (OLED) materials, has invested $900,000 in a R&D facility on the Brunel University Science Park site, Uxbridge. The new 186m2 R&D facility is a chemistry laboratory that will enable OLED-T to accelerate the production of its OLED materials known as Elamates and develop future generations of materials.

DisplaySearch, the worldwide leader in display market research and consulting, reported that the OLED industry reached revenues of over $500 million in 2005 and forecast revenues of more than $4.6 billion by 2010.

Acculogic announces a further expansion in board test capabilities with a successful bid to purchase Scorpion Technologies in Germany.

VaST Systems Technology announces the opening of its new European headquarters in Grenoble, France. The company is considering locating part of its research and development team there in the future. VaST's virtual prototyping solutions enable the design of embedded systems and system-on-chip (SoC). With VaST solutions, users can analyze and optimize their architecture, and develop software concurrently with hardware.

Triton, an independent European private equity investor, and the Dematic management have together taken over the shares in the worldwide Dematic business from Siemens. This step concludes the realignment of Dematic - which started in September last year - leaving the company as an autonomous enterprise. The companies involved have agreed not to disclose details of the transaction or of the sale price. Dematic is one of the world's leading suppliers of logistics automation equipment. Dematic employs about 4,000 people and achieved a business volume of more than 800 million euros.

US Zyvex and French Arkema announced their intention to strengthen their strategic partnership by jointly developing commercial nanomaterials applications. Through a new licensing arrangement, Arkema will use Zyvex’s patented Kentera dispersion technology, in conjunction with its own Multi Wall Carbon Nanotubes (MWNTs). Arkema will also be the exclusive distributor in Europe of Zyvex’s NanoSolve supply range.

Arkema produces and distributes multiwalled nanotubes (MWNTs). Its production capabilities, opened at the beginning of 2006, currently enable Arkema to manufacture 10 tons per year of high-purity MWNTs at its Lacq site (France). With this new facility, Arkema is planning a commercial development to fulfill the expectations of converters in the thermoplastics, epoxy resins, elastomers and coating sectors. Progress is also expected in the field of energy in which the use of carbon nanotubes should help manufacture energy-efficient batteries, super-capacitors and fuel cells. Present in over 40 countries with 18,400 employees, Arkema achieves sales of 5.7 billion euros (2005).