Nippon Mining & Metals to Transfer Specialty Copper Foil Trademark

Nippon Mining & Metals will transfer its technology and trademark of specialty application copper foil called “TCR” from its U.S. subsidiary, Nikko Materials USA (previously called Gould Electronics), to Ticer Technologies, a new company formed in March 2006 by Gould. Nippon Mining & Metals will abandon its electrolytic copper foil development and production in the U.S.A. completely after the transfer, while the firm continues electrolytic copper foil sales for U.S. market.TCR is copper foil with integrated thin film resistor which can adopt to high speed and high density electronic devices. Gould developed and commercialized TCR in 2001.Nippon Mining & Metals closed an electrolytic copper foil plant at Chandler in Arizona, the U.S.A. in April 2006, when the plant was suffered from worse profitability under stagnant U.S. market after the collapse of information and technology bubble. TCR productive facilities will be relocated from Chandler plant of Nippon Mining & Metals to Ticer Technologies within August 2006.