News Briefs

Woodbury, N.Y.-based Veeco Instruments Inc., a provider of solutions for nanoscale applications in the worldwide data storage, LED/wireless, semiconductor and scientific research markets, has promoted two executives responsible for the company's largest revenue and margin growth this year. Jeannine Sargent, formerly executive vice president, general manager of its research atomic force microscope, nanotechnology and biotechnology business unit, has been named executive vice president, metrology and instrumentation. Robert Oates, formerly senior vice president, ion beam operations, is now senior vice president, data storage. . . . Evergreen Solar Inc. of Marlboro, Mass., a solar power products manufacturer, will ship a minimum of $70 million in photovoltaic modules to solar electric technology developer PowerLight Corp. over the next four years under a new agreement between the two companies. Contract options could increase its value to approximately $170 million. Evergreen expects to make the products using its String Ribbon wafer technology at its plant in Massachusetts and at EverQ's 30-MW facility currently under construction in Thalheim, Germany. EverQ is a strategic partnership between Evergreen Solar and Q-Cells AG, a manufacturer of crystalline silicon solar cells. Shipments to PowerLight are scheduled to begin in the first half of 2006. . . . The Washington-based International Microelectronics and Packaging Society (IMAPS) will hold the second annual International Conference and Exhibition on Device Packaging, March 20–23, 2006, at the Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz. The conference will feature workshops on 3-D packaging, copper/low-k, flip chip technologies, high frequency/microwave, MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) and optoelectronics, as well as an exhibition and technology showcase for device packaging vendors and suppliers. For more information, visit: www.imaps.org/devicepackaging