[By NBC-1TV H. J Yook]GT Advanced Technologies (Nasdaq:GTAT), today announced that it has acquired substantially all of the business of Thermal Technology LLC for purchase consideration consisting of approximately 3.4 million shares of GTAT common stock and an earn out. Located in Santa Rosa, CA, Thermal Technology develops and sells a wide range of high temperature thermal and vacuum products used in the fabrication of advanced materials that are deployed across multiple industries including smartphones and touch screens, LED, medical devices, oil and gas and automotive to name a few. Thermal Technology has delivered over 3,000 products to customers in over 40 countries since it was founded 60 years ago.

GT has acquired several key products and technologies that will allow GT to address new markets with a range of production equipment options that can be optimized around customers' specific needs. This includes annealing technology that the company believes will be important in the manufacturing of sapphire cover screens; crystal growth technology based on the Kyropoulous (KY) growth method and edge defined film growth (EFG) technology for large surface area sapphire. The company has also acquired Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) technology, which allows dense ceramics to be obtained under uniform heating at relatively low temperatures and in short processing times. The SPS technology is expected to have a wide range of applications including with medical applications, sputtering targets, space applications and thermoelectric convertors for hybrid electric cars.

“The acquisition of the Thermal Technology business adds a number of innovative and important products and technologies to our rapidly diversifying portfolio that will, we believe, allow us to accelerate our entrance into new markets,” said Tom Gutierrez, GT's president and CEO. “The acquisition expands our served markets and complements several of our current product lines. In areas such as sapphire crystal growth, we can now offer customers a wider range of product options best suited to their specific production environments. This will enable us to compete for incremental business in areas where we would have previously been unable to offer a product.”