Company History
| 1946 | Industrial Distributors Ltd. established by Sir Ernest Oppenheimer to concentrate on the industrial use of natural diamond. |
| 1947 | Foundation of Diamond Research Laboratory (DRL) in Johannesburg. |
| 1953 | First successful diamond synthesis (ASEA , Sweden - now Element Six AB). |
| 1960 | De Beers announce successful synthesis (achieved in 1958). Formation of Ultrahigh Pressure Units to undertake diamond synthesis on a commercial scale (South Africa). |
| 1963 | Establishment of UHPU factory at Shannon (Ireland). |
| 1966 | De Beers Industrial Diamonds launches synthetic saw grit product SDA - 'saw diamond abrasive'. Nickel and copper-coated diamond introduced. |
| 1969 | Cubic boron nitride commercially introduced to grind hardened steel. |
| 1974 | Polycrystalline diamond wire drawing die blanks introduced. |
| 1975 | PCBN inserts introduced. |
| 1976 | Polycrystalline diamond blanks for drilling introduced. |
| 1992 | De Beers Industrial Diamonds offers CVD diamond 'Diafilm' products commercially. |
| 1994 | De Beers Industrial Diamonds emphasises diamond characterisation and launches novel ranking system for their grinding diamond - PremaDia. |
| 1996 | De Beers Industrial Diamonds launches three new saw grit ranges - new SDA, SDB and DSN, in response to ever-growing demand for synthetic saw grit products. |
| 1998 | Largest Polycrystalline Diamond (PCD) and Polycrystalline Cubic Boron Nitride (PCBN) disks commercially available at 74 millimetres and 101.6 millimetres in diameter respectively. |
| 1999 | Cvdite, a CVD diamond product range for cutting tool applications is commercially available. |
| 2001 | Diamond Research laboratory opened in Springs on the site of De Beers Industrial Diamonds largest synthesis plant. |
| 2002 | De Beers Industrial Diamonds rebrands to Element Six. |