JANUARY 22--New Scale Technologies (Victor, NY, USA; www.newscaletech.com) plans to create a $1M manufacturing center for automated, high-precision manufacturing of its patented SQUIGGLE motors. The 15,000-sq ft facility will allow the company to increase its production capacity to 100,000 SQUIGGLE motors per month. This capacity will be used to fulfill existing and anticipated contracts for SQUIGGLE motors for mobile-phone camera modules and other miniature devices. The company expects to begin using the new facility, located near its current headquarters, in March 2007.
The manufacturing center will feature micrometer-precision robotic assembly, essential for achieving the precision and repeatability needed to produce these millimeter-scale motors in high volumes. The facility is also designed for flexibility, allowing New Scale to manufacture multiple SQUIGGLE motor products to target multiple OEM markets.
The market for mobile phone cameras is forecast to grow from 500 million/year in 2005 to 900 million/year in 2009. This represents an emerging market for more than 1 billion tiny motors/year as camera designers race to improve image quality by adding features such as autofocus and optical zoom. Miniaturization, precision, robustness, and low power consumption are critical requirements that are not met by traditional motors. With half the size and ten times the precision of competing motor technologies, the SQUIGGLE motor is expected to capture a sizeable share of this market.
New Scale is also actively pursuing market opportunities in medical devices, where the SQUIGGLE motor enables smaller devices such as drug pumps and MRI-compatible systems. Additional opportunities exist for electronic security locks, intelligent fasteners, cryogenic imagers for homeland security, and emerging microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip applications.
