PI (Physik Instrumente) LP, an Auburn, Mass., manufacturer of nanopositioning and precision motion-control equipment for photonics, semiconductor and life-science applications, has received a US patent for HyperBit, technology to increase resolution in existing D/A converters without additional hardware. PI said the technology enables it to provide higher resolution piezo-driven nanopositioning devices less expensively, and that it works equally well in open- and closed-loop situations. In closed-loop systems, it can exist upstream or downstream from the servo, the company said, and it can reduce higher-order granularity-driven artifacts. (US patent 6,950,050, "Method and apparatus for increasing effective resolution of analog output of digital-to-analog converter [DAC] having predetermined digital word size, where DAC drives plant.")