Daily News Briefs

Stanley A. Schwartz has been named vice president of Nikon Instruments Inc.'s microscopy product/marketing division, in Melville, N.Y. Schwartz, who began working at Nikon in 1980 as part of the sales team for biomedical and industrial microscopes, was most recently manager of the microscopy product/marketing division. He has published several articles on microscopy, optics and confocal techniques and has led workshops and courses on microscopy, optics, digital imaging and confocal instrumentation uses and techniques. . . . Braintech Inc. a maker of 3-D vision-guided robotics (VGR) automation technology, announced that Ford Motor Co. has placed an order for an ABB/Braintech VGR system to be used in the manufacture of automotive transmissions. The system is scheduled to be installed this summer at the Ford automatic transmission operations facility in Livonia, Mich. Other ABB/Braintech systems are operating at, or ordered for, the automaker's powertrain and engine casting plants in Windsor, Ontario (Canada) and Romeo, Mich. Braintech has a strategic partership with ABB Canada; ABB's Robotic, Automotive and Manufacturing group supplies robots, robotic systems and automation systems to the automotive, manufacturing and consumer industries. . . . Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials (formerly Shipley Co. and Rodel Inc.), a Marlborough, Mass., developer of integrated circuit (IC) technology, announced today an agreement with CEA-Leti (French Atomic Energy Commission-Laboratory of Electronics and Information Technologies), a co-founder of the Minatec, Micro and Nanotechnologies Innovation European Centre, to develop IC process integration technology targeted at the 45 nanometer and lower nodes. They will initially focus on addressing IC industry needs for advanced lithography and advanced interconnect technologies that may include ultralow-k dielectrics, low-k and copper-compatible advanced removers and novel plating chemistries.