FEI Company
(Nasdaq:FEIC), a leading instrumentation company providing electron microscope
systems for applications across many industries, announces the availability
of two new software solutions that provide quantifiable data to improve natural
resource extraction. In addition, FEI announces that its popular QEMSCAN(R)
software is now available on the Quanta(TM) 650 scanning electron microscope
(SEM) platform.
The new software upgrades are part of FEI's automated mineralogy technology
suite, a high throughput analysis solution that provides quantitative mineralogical
data on a wide range of geological samples. In mining, this data enables engineers
to optimize mineral processing and mine planning. In oil & gas exploration,
the data enables geologists to develop improved reservoir models. In both market
segments, these solutions reduce uncertainty in operational decisions, increasing
the likelihood of more successful exploration and more efficient production.
"These powerful new solutions demonstrate FEI's commitment to improving
the speed, user experience, and utility of the MLA and QEMSCAN solutions, following
our acquisition of Intellection and the MLA business of JKTech in 2009,"
said Paul Scagnetti, FEI's Industry Market Division vice president and general
manager. "These application-specific software solutions were developed
at FEI's Center of Excellence for Natural Resources in Brisbane, Australia,
working closely with our customers."
The software solutions being launched today include:
MLA v3.0--The Mineral Liberation Analyzer (MLA) measurement and analysis suite
has been completely revised with the launch of version 3.0. The user interface
is enhanced, with flexibility in processing of particle images and extraction
of quantitative mineralogical data. A completely new and integrated data management
system has also been introduced, as well as simplified measurement set-up and
mineral standards management protocols.
iDiscover(TM) v5.0--This is the latest upgrade to the QEMSCAN software suite,
and includes a revolutionary automated mineral identification algorithm. Customers
can now directly identify more than twice as many elements, which enables more
subtle discrimination of complex mineral compositions.
Also, for the first time, QEMSCAN is available on the FEI Quanta 650 SEM platform.
The new QEMSCAN product has enhanced image quality and significantly faster
X-ray acquisition throughput than previous QEMSCAN products.