of Photonics Technologies: the European Perspective The Leverage Effect

The Leverage Effect of Photonics Technologies: the European Perspective
ence in the production of systems for Medical & Healthcare equipment
using photonics. Europe (especially Germany but also the UK and the
Netherlands) is particularly strong in the area of advanced microscopy
and other emerging tools used in medical and life science research as
well as increasingly being utilised in healthcare. In Defence & Security,
infrared imaging is a major application, along with security monitoring
cameras. Especially in Defence & Security companies are usually large
multinationals, although some SMEs are involved. Biometrics and surveillance
cameras are considered of high importance and have strong
European representation. Also in safety Europe is a significant player,
overlapping with the application area Transport where Europe also has
a significant presence especially in traffic monitoring and congestion
charging systems. The last application areas are Consumer products. In
this area European presence is limited and this market is mostly dominated
by Asian companies, although the design rather than the production
of low cost CMOS cameras is regarded to be an EU strength.
Looking at the connections between the different elements of the
value chain, in general the connections are limited. For several high
volume components especially imaging chips, production is based in
Asia although some specialised high performance production is based
in Europe. The high volume products are essentially commodities usually
purchased on cost and then integrated in systems. However, the
linkages between research and manufacturing are relatively strong and
essential. Particularly with specialised systems, the pipeline of research
and manufacturing is crucial for survival of a business. But the actual
situation highly depends on the concrete product groups, where less
complex systems have limited linkages.
36 / 190