UST Inc. and Saskatoon Firm Sign Synchrotron Technology Agreement

Posted January 23, 2001


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ? January 22, 2001 2001-01-05-OTHER

UST Inc. and Saskatoon Firm Sign Synchrotron Technology Agreement

Scientists at the Canadian Light Source synchrotron on the University of
Saskatchewan campus have come up with a new motor control device that will
help run synchrotron beamline equipment and could be sold to synchrotron
facilities around the world.

The device was developed by former CLS engineer Eric Norum and engineering
technologist Don Cruickshank. The right to manufacture and sell it has
recently been licensed to Saskatoon firm Scientific Instrumentation Ltd.
(SIL) under an agreement signed between SIL and the U of S?s technology
transfer arm UST Inc.

"This partnership marks the first time that a Canadian company has become
involved in the manufacture of parts for synchrotrons," said UST president
Branko Peterman. "This is an excellent example of how UST is helping to move
technology from the lab bench to the marketplace."

SIL, an advanced technology company specializing in instrumentation, now has
an $80,000 contract with the CLS to produce 100 of the new "stepper motor
controllers." Further orders are anticipated.

Under the agreement with UST, SIL will pay UST a royalty based on any units
sold to synchrotrons other than CLS.

SIL president Larry Cooper said he thinks there?s a significant market for
the device internationally. "This stepper motor controller has superior
technical capability to the ones that are out there now," he said. "It
should be a good little bread-and-butter product for us."

Each device can drive eight motors, providing low-cost and dependable
control of small motors used to steer and precisely focus X-ray beams for
scientific experiments. For instance, they can control devices called
monochromators that select particular wavelengths of light for experiments.
Existing motor drivers made by commercial suppliers had reliability problems
and were too costly.

Prior to the licensing agreement, CLS produced and sold several of these
motor drivers at cost to a beamline group at the Chicago synchrotron
facility, the Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Laboratories.

Cooper, current president and a founding member of the Saskatchewan Advanced
Technology Association, is optimistic about the opportunities for Western
Canadian companies to become suppliers of synchrotron technology.

"I think there are great prospects there. The real trick is for Saskatchewan
industry to identify those opportunities and form the right strategic
alliances with local or international groups to access this work," he said.

Construction of the $173.5-million national synchrotron facility is on time
and on budget. The building that will house the synchrotron is nearly
completed. The facility will begin operations in January of 2004.

A synchrotron is a huge, high-tech machine that accelerates a stream of
electrons and manipulates them to create a beam of light billions of times
brighter than the sun. The light can then be used by industrial and
university researchers as a revolutionary new tool to observe structures and
chemical reactions at a molecular level.

The CLS is owned and controlled by the U of S. CLS construction is mainly
funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canadian government, the
Saskatchewan government, the Ontario government, the University of
Saskatchewan, the City of Saskatoon and SaskPower.


For more information, contact:

Eric Norum
Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering
University of Saskatchewan
(306) 966-5394
eric.norum@usask.ca


Kathryn Warden
Research Communications Officer
University of Saskatchewan
Tel: (306) 966-2506
Fax: (306) 966-2411
Email: kathryn.warden@usask.ca