Feb 11 2009
Research and Markets has announced the addition of WinterGreen Research, Inc.'s new report "Worldwide Optical, Transmission TEM, and Scanning SEM Electron Microscope Market Shares, Strategies, and Forecasts, 2009 to 2015" to their offering.
Breakthrough technology in microscopy brings advancements that provide customers with the power to discover things they have never seen before, and to solve problems never before solvable.
Microscope markets are segmented as optical microscopes, electron microscopes, scanning probe microscopes and focused ion beam microscopy. Optical microscopes are light microscopes. The optical microscope is limited in the minimum size and nature of the features it can resolve by manufacturability constraints and the physics of light. While optical microscopes once accounted for the bulk of all microscopes sold in the world, today their percentage of total revenue is shrinking.
New microscopy technologies have been developed to overcome the limitations of light microscopes. Electron, scanning probe and focused ion beam microscopy are essential aspects of different approaches to visualization at the nanoparticle level. The field of microscopy continues to evolve rapidly, as new requirements and imaging technologies are developed.
Innovations in electronics, engineering and industrial materials permit the industry to effectively overcome conventional barriers, allowing new systems to evolve based on new technologies. Custom-assembled systems are based on modular approaches to product delivery. Platforms are implemented as frameworks that accept any of a variety of modules.
Nanotechnology funding at $8.5 billion in 2008 is anticipated to increase rapidly as countries respond to the economic meltdown. Every dollar invested in nanotechnology research turns $5 in tax dollars within a year and continues to provide that level of taxes for the next 20 to 50 years. This is a very good investment.
FEI has had momentum in the microscope research markets unmatched by any competitor. The wins in the research market are significant because the nanotechnology techniques being developed there will work for another generation, driving markets in every segment as the research in nanotechnology being conducted now provides technology that will flow out into industry and government at a rapid pace.
FEI Company (Nasdaq:FEIC) high-resolution imaging and analysis system Titan(3(TM)) 80-300 scanning/transmission electron microscope (S/TEM) competitive win in the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) of Saudi Arabia bring enormous opportunity to the company.
IBM has extended 3D MRI to the Nanoscale. IBM Research (NYSE: IBM) scientists, in collaboration with the Centre for Probing the Nanoscale at Stanford University, have demonstrated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with volume resolution 100 million times finer than conventional MRI.
Microscope market forecasts indicate that markets at $3.5 billion in 2008 are anticipated to reach $7.7 billion by 2015. Growth is stimulated by worldwide government investment in innovation in response to the meltdown of financial markets.