BILLERICA, Mass., 24 July 2006. Bruker AXS Inc. has acquired all of the shares of privately-held KeyMaster Technologies Inc. from KeyMaster's previous majority shareholder, Advent International, and other shareholders. KeyMaster Technologies, located in Kennewick, Washington, develops and manufactures portable hand-held X-ray fluorescence (XRF) systems for numerous applications.
The company's XRF systems are well suited to such applications as:
-- metals and alloy analysis used in various metal processing industries, including automotive, scrap sorting, and others,
-- Positive Material Identification (PMI) required for example in the aerospace and power industries,
-- Restrictions of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) analysis required under European regulations,
-- environmental metals-in-soil or lead-in-paint (LiP) analysis,
-- art, museum and archaeological analysis, and
-- elemental taggant analysis for tracing of origin and security applications.
The hand-held XRF market has been the fastest growing market segment in X-ray analysis in recent years, with an estimated total market size of $90 million in 2005.
As a new Bruker AXS subsidiary, KeyMaster will remain in its current location and will continue under its current name and management team.
