Lord Sainsbury of Turville, former Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State for Science and Innovation, today dedicated
the new £1.3 million clean room at AMETEK
Taylor Hobson’s Leicester, England, headquarters.
The new clean room, which consists of Class 7 (10,000) and Class 4 (10)
areas, is equipped with the latest metrology instrumentation for micro
and nano technologies (MNT).
The facility is an expansion of Taylor Hobson’s
Centre of Excellence laboratory at Leicester, which provides
measurement support, training and advice to UK manufacturing and
research companies in the field of MNT through the CEMMNT (Centre of
Excellence in Metrology for Micro and Nano Technologies) partnership.
Taylor Hobson, a recognized leader in the manufacture of
ultra-precision measurement instrumentation, has partnered with the UK
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and four other globally
recognized leaders in MNT (The UK National Physical Laboratory,
QinetiQ, Coventor, and BAE Systems) in supporting CEMMNT, a five-year
project to accelerate the commercial development of MNT technologies
across the United Kingdom. DTI has provided £4.3 million of
funding from the MNT Capital Facilities Programme to CEMMNT for the
creation of four Centres of Excellence nationwide.
“We at Taylor Hobson are rightly proud of our
ultra-precision measurement capability and believe that this superb new
facility provides us with the opportunity to share our knowledge and
experience with a broad cross section of industry,” commented
Dean Westmoreland, Managing Director of Taylor Hobson.
“We have made a significant investment in the
partnership with DTI to give industry greater access to
state-of-the-art instrumentation such as our Coherence Correlation
Interferometer and Form Talysurf PGI, both of which are class leading
measurement instruments that provide the very best in sub nanometer
surface measurement. Through our truly global network we have
the ability to provide tailored metrology solutions not only to the UK,
but on a worldwide basis, with trained accredited engineers throughout
Europe, Asia, America, India and the Middle East” he added.
The worldwide market for nanotechnology is estimated to grow
to £1 trillion by 2013. Nanotechnology promises
smaller, cheaper, lighter and faster devices with greater functionality
using fewer raw materials and consuming less energy. These devices
range from antibacterial wound dressings to self cleaning windows.
Taylor Hobson currently spends a significant portion of its
research budget at Leicester but also funds research at UK universities
and is represented on international standards bodies as well.
With over 20 years of experience in micro- and nano-scale measurement,
Taylor Hobson recently announced the launch of its world beating PGI
2540 Profiler Instrument boasting 0.2nm resolution, which again pushes
the leading edge of metrology forward.
Taylor Hobson is a leading manufacturer of ultra-precision
measurement instrumentation for a variety of markets, including optics,
semiconductors, hard disk drives and nanotechnology research.
It is a unit of AMETEK Inc, a leading global manufacturer of electronic
instruments and electromechanical devices with annual sales of more
than $2.0 billion.
Posted January 24th 2008
