50th Anniversary of HORIBA, Ltd. Products and Technology of HORIBA Group

Author: Kozo Ishida; Executive Vice President

Author: Shoji Ito, Takuji Osaki – HORIBA, Ltd., established on January 26, 1953, marked its golden anniversary this year (2003). With our motto of "HORIBA, pursuing technology to an ultimate degree," we have made independent progresses as a manufacturer specializes in unique analytical technologies and products. HORIBA has been moved aggressively into overseas market from the very beginning and founded many significant subsidiaries. Most notably, the joining of Jobin Yvon and ABX in HORIBA Group expanded the range of its products and technologies. Today, the products of HORIBA group are comprised over 1000 different models, which are strongly supported by multiple technologies. This article refers to such products and technologies, the path that HORIBA has been following through the history of fifty years, and for the coming years.

HORIBA Company Profile on 6 target areas, 5 core technologies and outline of group companies. (Same content in Japanese is in Readout No.26-Japanese edition-.)

Author: Michel Mariton; Jobin Yvon S.A.S. – A diffraction grating is an optical component that disperses the different wavelengths of an incident light. It is used as the key component in optical spectroscopy, telecommunication multiplexing or laser systems, for example. As a pioneer and presently world leader in this field, Jobin Yvon (JY) has developed the manufacturing of advanced diffraction gratings as its core technology and pursues the applications of this technology either on its own (Raman spectroscopy, spectrofluorometry ...) or with partners. (Same content in Japanese is in Readout No.26-Japanese edition-.)

Author: George P. Thomas; Jobin Yvon Inc. – While many know that Jobin Yvon's (JY's) involvement in optics can be traced to its origin in 1819, few are aware of the company's early efforts in the development of optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The company's expertise in optics led to the wide range of successful products that are made today by the Emission Division such as Inductively Coupled Plasma, Spark Emission and Glow Discharge Spectrometers. In this paper, we will introduce emission spectroscopy and review JY's contribution to this important branch of elemental analysis. (Same content in Japanese is in Readout No.26-Japanese edition-.)

Author: Franck Seguy; ABX S.A – ABX is a manufacturer dedicated to hematological test equipments, established in 1983. Today, it has the lineup of products which are centrally midium and small equipments of cell blood counting, and grew to 5th position worldwide in hematology. ABX joined the HORIBA Group in 1996, thus it has developed unique products such as Micros CRP: automatic blood cell counter plus CRP and Pentra 400 : clinical chemistry analyzer by combining each strengths in group. This paper presents the way to ABX growth, the essential technology which has supported it, and the future prospects. (Same content in Japanese is in Readout No.26-Japanese edition-.)

Author: Georges Ferrandi; ABX S.A.; Christophe Fudaly; ABX S.A.; Olivier Magnin; ABX S.A.; Stéphane Rougale; ABX S.A. – The medical diagnostic market always demands faster results, high precision and sensitivity, complete secure systems and more flexibility while controlling costs. Clinical Chemistry represents a big part of that market and is even more price sensitive than the other areas. ABX has designed the Pentra 400, a new kind of Clinical Chemistry system in partnership with other companies within the HORIBA group. The Pentra 400 is a random access bench top clinical chemistry analyzer with high productivity, high level of analytical capabilities and unique flexibility for this range of analyzer. The types of tests that are performed vary from routine Clinical Chemistry to more specific tests like HbA1c, DATs, TDMs, up to research testing. By combining its high standards with unique flexibility, it also opens various application capabilities for future test needs. (Same content in Japanese is in Readout No.26-Japanese edition-.)

Author: Kiyoaki Hara; STEC Inc. – The root of STEC Inc. is Standard Technology Co., Ltd. that was founded in 1974 to unify the calibration of pollution measuring instruments. Since its founding, STEC has grown with gas and liquid flow measurement and control as its core technology. The company enjoys a worldwide reputation for excellent performance and reliability of its mass flow controllers, especially those created for the semiconductor industry. This article introduces STEC's products and technologies up to the present as well as the leading-edge trend for mass flow controllers. (Same content in Japanese is in Readout No.26-Japanese edition-.)

Author: Neal Harvey; HORIBA Instruments Incorporated; Juichi Saito; HORIBA Instruments Incorporated – Dr. Masao Horiba and Dr. Masahiro Oura personally introduced the HORIBA NDIR to the U.S. automotive market in the mid-1960s, selling their first instrument to the Ford Motor Company. A joint venture, Olson-HORIBA Incorporated, was formed in 1970 to build emissions systems with HORIBA analyzers. HORIBA purchased the Olson portion of the company in 1972, reincorporating the company in California as HORIBA Instruments Incorporated (HII). Over the ensuing 30 years creative employees at HII initiated many new HORIBA products, including the venturi CVS, automation computer systems, electric dynamometers, turn-key systems, project management, 48 inch dynamometers, and the Bag Mini-Diluter. Details are reported.

Author: Thomas Eisenmann; HORIBA Europe GmbH – Environmental monitoring has a long and sound tradition in Central Europe due to the early awareness of the people about the adverse effects of environmental pollution and a consequent stipulation of measures to protect the environment. In view of this situation, HORIBA Europe GmbH (HE) already started more than 25 years ago to contribute with its activities to mainly monitoring the ambient air as a prerequisite for the improvement of the overall environmental quality. Generally, the situation was drastically improved since then, yet it still did not achieve the desired level, particularly looking at countries in the South and East of Europe. Our products and know-how would contribute to solve these problems.

Author: Kazunori Sasaki; COS Co., Ltd.; Riichiro Suzuki; COS Co., Ltd.; Koji Uchimura; COS Co., Ltd. – COS Co., Ltd. is a group of experts in liquid measurement within the HORIBA group. This article first reviews the founding of COS and its history up to the present, and then introduces COS's fundamental technologies and product lines, showing as examples the automatic total nitrogen and phosphorus meter that is being jointly developed with HORIBA through technology transfer, the organic pollutant monitor that has a long-established reputation of reliability, and COS's proprietary technologies such as the effluent treatment monitoring system for agricultural communes, and the semiconductor process monitor. This article also introduces COS's ongoing efforts for excellent products through recent developments, such as the GC-96RW, a two-channel simultaneous resistivity converter, and the SLIA-300, a high-sensitivity silica monitor. (Same content in Japanese is in Readout No.26-Japanese edition-.)

Author: Yoshiaki Yasui; HORIBA Biotechnology Co., Ltd. – HORIBA Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (HBT) is a venture company established in June 2000, with the aim of developing the analytical systems which are rapid and highly sensitive for environmental hazardous chemical substances such as residual pesticides and dioxins by using frontier biotechnologies. This report introduces the background of our company establishment, the assay kits using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) which is one of the immunochemical analyses and the MPR-01 micro plate reader, and our future direction. (Same content in Japanese is in Readout No.26-Japanese edition-.)

Author: Satoshi Nomura – Since HORIBA developed the first glass-electrode pH meter in 1950 in Japan, HORIBA has greatly contributed to the development of science and technology through its sophisticated pH measuring technologies. On the other hand, requirements for pH measurement have greatly diversified in this half century, leading to the development of pH measuring technologies, which HORIBA has not been involved in so far, other than the glass-electrode method. In this article, the pH measuring methods other than by the glass-electrode pH meter will be reviewed. In particular, those applied to biological research will be explained as well as pH measuring technologies related to the most up-to-data nanotechnologies. (Same content in Japanese is in Readout No.26-Japanese edition-.)

Column about "pH". (Same article in Japanese is in Readout No.26-Japanese edition-.)