Scientific Systems Ltd, a Dublin-based company which has devised ways in which the plasma used in the manufacture of semi-conductors can be measured and controlled, has been named the winner of the 2000 National Innovation Awards.
The two-year old company, located in Howth Junction Business Park, is the brainchild of two former Dublin City University lecturers. It employs 30 people in its Dublin manufacturing facility, six in its marketing base in San Jose, California and one person in Japan.
Nine firms were shortlisted for the awards, sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers, The Irish Times and Forfas on behalf of the Government's Science, Technology and Innovation Awareness Programme. The winners were announced at a ceremony in Dublin Castle yesterday.
According to Mr Mike Hopkin, the company co-founder and chief executive, Scientific Systems has its genesis in an approach to him by one of his former students, Mr Ciaran O Morain. Mr O Morain, an engineer who was working in Japan at the time, suggested forming a firm to produce the required plasma for exportation to Japan.
"For me it was a huge decision, to leave a very secure academic job. And neither of us had experience of management. My expertise is plasma, the particular speciality is measurement and control of plasmas. He saw an opportunity for that," he says.
Mr O Morain also took a job in DCU and the company was incubated on the university's campus in Glasnevin.
The company now designs and manufactures plasma or "ionised gas" sensors and instruments for process control in the semiconductor and thin-film industries. Its range of products include impedence monitors and ion flux probes. Its winning entry, SmartPIM, is an on-the-production-line plasma sensor that highlights characteristics and defects to the highest resolution through the measurement of critical plasma paramaters.
The chairman of the panel of judges, Dr Patrick Galvin, said that innovation principally springs from a commitment to excellence and a willingness to embrace and even encourage change. "That is why, in a highly competitive and challenging world, innovation is one of the principal routes to growth and development," he added.
The Minister of State for Science, Technology and Commerce, Mr Noel Treacy, said that innovation represented an added-value element in products and services in Ireland. In the past Ireland tended to be less associated with advanced new products and methods but this had changed dramatically and the State now was well up the EU league in terms of its business sector's investment in research and development.
Scientific Systems was also the winner of the small business category of the awards. Cork-based Vita Cortex Ltd won the medium-sized category for its new third generation aircraft seatbase cushions. The winner of the large business section was Artesyn Technologies from Youghal, Co Cork, a manufacturer and designer of power supplies. The company received the award for a surface mountable convertor which can be incorporated into customer products by machine, rather than hand.
And the winning new technology company was HiberGen Ltd, a biotechnology start-up for SNaPIT, a technology which will analyse the human genome in pursuit of the genetic basis underlying certain diseases and drug responses.
Finalists in the competition included Dublin-based AQZ Limited, which manufactures a disposable device to protect patients' eyes during surgery; Baltimore Technologies, for a suite of seven wireless e-security solutions; Guinness Ireland for a system for delivery of Guinness stout from a bottle; Dublin based Managed Solutions Corporation for a software product for the life and bank assurance industry; and Carlow based Oglesby & Butler for a breakthrough in the field of gas catalytic heat tools.
