Daily News Briefs

Peter Shamshoian was named vice president of North America and European sales for Ultratech Inc., a San Jose, Calif., supplier of lithography and laser-processing systems used to manufacture semiconductors and nanotechnology devices. Shamshoian was formerly senior director of business development for Films and Surface Technology at KLA-Tencor, managing relationships with accounts in North America and Europe. Before that, he was vice president of global customer operations at ATMI Technologies, where he managed foreign subsidiaries in Taiwan, Singapore, Korea and Europe. . . . LG.Philips LCD, a developer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display technology, announced it has signed an agreement with Hewlett-Packard (HP) to provide notebook PC and monitor LCD panels over the next three years. LG.Philips LCD will be the primary supplier of LCDs for HP notebook PCs and monitors from June 2005 to May 2008. . . . Phasebridge Inc., a Pasadena, Calif., maker of photonic integration technology for analog radio frequency (RF) signal processing and optical fiber transmission, was awarded a $350,000 contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to further the development of an optical RF quadrature phase-shift-keyed (QPSK) technique and to analyze its applications in a new generation of ultrawideband military radio systems. The technique will be used to imprint data during the frequency synthesis process in such "photonic radios." Phasebridge CTO Ron Logan said the QPSK technology will reduce the size, weight and power consumption of military radio systems by combining the functions of multiple radio systems into one and by replacing heavy copper cable with optical fiber. Phasebridge and its partners, including Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, have been developing this technology for military and commercial applications for several years.