Brief corporate history of Zyvex

Zyvex Corporation was founded in 1997 to develop and commercialize Atomically Precise Manufacturing technology — ultimately building products with atomic precision. When developed, Atomically Precise Manufacturing should allow flexible manufacturing of a wide variety of products — ranging from designer materials to supercomputers to advanced medical devices.

Founder Jim Von Ehr previously was CEO and founder of a very successful software company which pioneered applications in desktop publishing until the company was bought in 1995. Von Ehr’s background as a software entrepreneur led him to the realization that Atomically Precise Manufacturing — creating “digital matter” — could become a huge new opportunity to manufacture products better, faster, and cheaper than any previous technology.

Zyvex Corporation in its early years did fundamental research into APM, often building its own tools along the way. In recent years, Zyvex took that technology to market by developing commercial products in the nanomaterials and nanomanipulation areas. As those product lines developed, they started to compete with one another for corporate resources. Therefore, in April 2007, Zyvex Corporation reorganized itself into three independent companies: Zyvex Performance Materials LLC, Zyvex Instruments LLC, and Zyvex Labs LLC, by distributing its assets among those companies, and hiring dedicated management for the Materials and Instruments businesses. Zyvex Asia Pte. Ltd. is a fourth company which was started in March 2007, doing research and developing nanotechnology products at its home base in Singapore.

Zyvex Labs funding comes from government R&D contracts, private investment, and contract research.

Zyvex Labs LLC has two goals: develop Atomically Precise Manufacturing, and exploit our technology for microfabrication and 3D microassembly. Developed during Zyvex’s 5-year, $25M NIST ATP project to build 3D assembled microsystems, our MEMS technology is currently being used to fabricate miniature scientific instrumentation such as a mini Scanning Electron Microscope and a mini Atomic Force Microscope, as well as next-generation nanoprobing systems. These systems will be developed for larger marketing partners or spun off into standalone companies, depending on the product. Zyvex Labs is a founding partner in Nano-Retina, which is building an advanced prosthetic vision device.

Zyvex Asia Pte. Ltd. was formed to collaborate closely with Zyvex Labs as an independent Asian R&D facility, in conjunction with resources in Singapore, such as the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), Nanyang Technology University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS), and other A*STAR institutes. Zyvex Asia also is seeking other nanotechnology commercialization opportunities from research institutions across Asia.

Zyvex Performance Materials Inc. sells high performance materials based on its proprietary and revolutionary technology for processing carbon nanotubes into both thermoset and thermoplastic polymers and epoxies. Providing advanced materials with up to 50% greater strength than the best conventional carbon fiber composite materials, ZPM sells to the sporting goods industry, aerospace and defense, and other industries ranging from consumer products to oil field down-hole applications. ZPM has facilities in Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas.

Zyvex Instruments LLC is the leading vendor (largest installed base by units) selling advanced nanoprobing tools to the integrated circuit industry. These tools are used for failure analysis on chips at the 90nm and smaller geometries — the most advanced chips in the industry. Zyvex nanoprobers are installed in virtually every major semiconductor company worldwide. In February 2010, Zyvex Instruments was acquired by DCG Systems.

Zyvex Instruments
acquired by