Daily News Briefs

Micronic Laser Systems AB, a Swedish manufacturer of laser pattern generation equipment to the display and semiconductor industries, announced it has received a repeat order from an Asian customer for an LRS series pattern generation tool for advanced thin-film-transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) photomasks. The system will be delivered in 2005. . . . Norman, Okla.-based Ekips Technologies Inc. announced it has received a $500,000 Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation for continued hardware and software development of The Breathmeter, a laser spectroscope breath analyzer that can be used to diagnose chronic illnesses such as asthma. The Breathmeter uses a mid-range infrared laser on a semiconductor chip the size of a grain of salt. The laser shoots light through various breath gases, which absorb the light at different rates measured by a detector; a computer is used to identify levels of the breath's molecular components. FDA clinical trials are underway using the device to detect early signs of asthma and lung cancer. . . . W. Cleon Anderson, chief project engineer at L-3 Communication Systems-West, in Salt Lake City, Utah, has been named president-elect of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Anderson will succeed 2004 IEEE President Arthur W. Winston, director of the Gordon Institute of Tufts University in Medford, Mass.; his term will begin Jan.1, 2005.