Industry News
Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. announced that it has acquired privately held US-based venture company SyChip Inc., a leader in radio frequency chip scale modules (CSM). Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. is an innovator in electronics and a global supplier of passive components. Murata agreed to pay approximately $140 M as the total consideration for outstanding shares, stock options and warrants.
Microsemi Corp. announced that it has finalized its acquisition of Advanced Power Technology in a combined stock and cash transaction. With this acquisition, Microsemi provides customers with a broader range of high performance analog, high reliability and RF products.
Andrew Corp. has acquired Precision Antennas Ltd., a Stratford, England-based provider of antennas for terrestrial and satellite communications systems. Under the agreement, Andrew paid approximately $26 M to acquire the subsidiary of UK-based Cobham plc. Precision Antennas designs and produces microwave antennas for use in carrying point-to-point radio signals, primarily for cellular network backhaul.
Filtronic plc, a global designer and manufacturer of customized microwave electronic subsystems for the wireless telecommunications and defense industries, and Powerwave Technologies Inc., a global supplier of end-to-end wireless solutions for wireless networks, announced that the companies have entered into a period of exclusive negotiations for the disposal of Filtronic’s filter-based transmit receive module and power amplifier businesses of its Wireless Infrastructure Division.
EPCOS closed the deal that transfers its tantalum capacitor business to US American capacitor manufacturer KEMET. The selling price for EPCOS’ tantalum business is € 86.5 M. The sale will give EPCOS an expected cash inflow totaling € 70 M, the bulk of which will be paid in the current (third) quarter of fiscal 2006.
Lytron Inc., a supplier of liquid cooling products to OEMs, announced the acquisition of Lockhart Industries Inc., a subsidiary of Wakefield Thermal Solutions. Lytron designs and manufactures advanced aluminum-brazed cooling components for the military and electronics markets. Lytron plans to move and fully integrate the Lockhart business into its newly expanded Woburn, MA facility later this year.
The management team of BFi OPTiLAS has completed a management buyout of the company, which has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Avnet Corp. for over 10 years. The management team has acquired a majority stake in the company, with Avnet retaining a minority stake. It has stated that it will continue to expand its operation as a pan European distributor of products and services for the electronic and photonic market places, including RF and microwave components, systems and assemblies.
Elcoteq SE, a provider of electronics manufacturing services to the communications technology industry, has entered into an agreement with American-based PCTEL Antenna Products Group Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of PCTEL Inc. According to the agreement, Elcoteq will manufacture integrated Variable Electrical Tilt (iVET) base station antennas along with certain land mobile radio antennas in Elcoteq’s new St. Petersburg plant in Russia. The deliveries will begin in the second quarter of 2006.
Park Electrochemical Corp. announced a change in name for its advanced composite materials business from FiberCote Industries Inc. to Nelcote Inc. Consistent with this name change, Park’s advanced composite materials product line will now be sold under the Nelcote™ trade name.
M/A-COM announced the opening of the M/A-COM–Shenzhen Engineering and Operations Center in Shenzhen, China. The new center is a fully capable facility that enables the company to rapidly create and manufacture derivative product designs, with local engineering resources available to support the company’s customers who have manufacturing and engineering facilities in China. The new center is located at M/A-COM Shenzhen Office, 3/F, Block 1, Keji South Road, Vision Shenzhen Business Park, Shenzhen Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Shenzhen, P.R.C., +86 755 27620888 or fax: +86 755 26716058.
Unity Wireless Corp. announced that it has opened a sales and customer support office in the United Kingdom to service OEM, operator and distributor customers in the European, Middle Eastern and African (EMEA) regional markets.
Aperto Networks, a developer of WiMAX base stations and subscriber units, announced the establishment of an Aperto WiMAX development center in Bangalore, India, for the purpose of accelerating the engineering development and deployment of the company’s WiMAX Forum Certified and WiMAX-class products.
Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. has relocated its corporate headquarters to a new location in Fort Washington, PA. The company will maintain its current telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. The new corporate address is located at 1005 Virginia Drive, Fort Washington, PA 19034.
Modelithics announced that it will now provide direct distribution and support of all model libraries and custom models for Eagleware/Agilent GENESYS and HARBEC simulation software, in the same way it continues to support Agilent ADS customer’s needs for improved accuracy model libraries.
JEM Engineering, a custom antenna design, manufacturing and testing services company, announced that it has co-engineered an artificially-evolved antenna with NASA, becoming the first of its type in space. The evolved antenna — mounted on three of NASA’s Space Technology 5 (ST5) satellites — was launched into an Earth orbit on March 22nd.
Ansoft Corp. has joined the GEIA Compact Model Council (CMC), a group of 35 semiconductor and electronic design automation companies worldwide that promote the standardization of compact model formulations.
The LXI Consortium announced that Geotest-Marvin Test Systems Inc. has joined the standards organization as an advisory member. As a global supplier of PXI and PC-based test products, systems and solutions, Geotest expands the growing number of test and measurement companies supporting and promoting the LXI standard.
ANADIGICS Inc. announced five new patents covering innovations in the design and development of radio frequency integrated circuits. The patents strengthen the company’s impressive intellectual property portfolio and extend its technological advantages across its wireless and broadband product families.
Electron Energy Corp., a producer of rare earth magnets and magnet systems, assures that all EEC orders for magnets and magnet systems with a stated end use by the US Department of Defense are produced in compliance to US law Berry Amendment specialty metal provisions enacted in DFARS 252.225-7014 Alt 1. This is the specific mechanism in the Defense Federal Acquisitions Regulations Supplement by which “domestic source restrictions” are implemented by the Department of Defense. US law and its revisions known as the Berry Amendment enact “domestic source restrictions” provisions for national defense.
EMA Design Automation,™ a full-service provider of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) solutions, and Ageus Solutions, a leader in RoHS and WEEE compliance, have joined forces to provide environmental compliance solutions from design through manufacturing.
Comarco Wireless Test Solutions announced it has delivered 350 Prizm multi-band, multi-technology RF scanners to ZK Celltest Inc. for use in ZK’s RMS real-time monitoring system.
Contracts
EMS Technologies Inc. announced that its Defense and Space Systems Division has been awarded a contract by an undisclosed US prime contractor to build electronics for a US Department of Defense satellite program. The contract award calls for EMS to build an undisclosed quantity of units that will find a home in national security space applications. The 24-month contract was valued at approximately $9 M. Additional quantities, valued at approximately $4 M, are expected to be ordered later this year.
Lockheed Martin awarded G.T. Microwave a continuance contract after G.T. successfully completed and delivered 500 calibrated-for-true position vector modulators on time. G.T. Microwave, a designer and manufacturer of microwave integrated components, proposed the accepted plan to Lockheed Martin, an advance technology systems integrator. The vector modulators will be utilized to solve an antenna test application with 0.1-degree accuracy.
Texas Instruments Inc. announced that Alvarion, a provider of wireless broadband solutions and specialized mobile networks, has selected the company’s portfolio of WiMAX infrastructure technologies as part of its mobile WiMAX solution, 4Motion. Alvarion’s BreezeMAX system, the primary building block of 4Motion’s radio access network, will leverage TI technology to address the growing demand for mobile broadband wireless technologies, including support for IEEE 802.16e standards, across a broad range of spectrum. These products enable carriers to offer high performance broadband data, voice and multimedia services over wider coverage areas.
Cadence Design Systems Inc. announced that Saifun Semiconductors Ltd., a provider of non-volatile memory technology and solutions, has adopted the Cadence® Analog Mixed Signal (AMS) Methodology Kit. Leading semiconductor manufacturers use Saifun NROM technology to develop and manufacture a variety of Flash products for the wireless, consumer electronics, networking and automotive markets.
Financial News
Endwave Corp. announced that it has entered into a Preferred Stock and Warrant Purchase Agreement with Oak Investment Partners XI, Limited Partnership. Pursuant to the purchase agreement, Oak has purchased 300,000 shares of Series B Preferred Stock for $150 per preferred share for gross proceeds of $45 M. The preferred shares are convertible into 3,000,000 shares of common stock, for an effective purchase price of $15 per common share equivalent and an approximate 12 percent premium to the closing price of Endwave’s common stock on April 24, 2006. As part of the transaction, Endwave issued a three-year warrant granting Oak the right to purchase an additional 90,000 preferred shares at an exercise price of $150 per preferred share, which are convertible into 900,000 shares of common stock at $15 per share.
WJ Communications Inc. reports sales of $11.7 M for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2005, compared to $7.9 M for the same period in 2004. Net loss for the quarter was $2.1 M ($0.03/per common share), compared to a net loss of $4 M ($0.07/per common share) for the fourth quarter of last year.
Merrimac Industries Inc. reports sales of $7 M for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2005, compared to $7.8 M for the same period in 2004. Net income for the quarter was $117,000 ($0.04/per diluted share), compared to a net income of $209,000 ($0.07/per diluted share) for the fourth quarter of last year.
VERTILAS GmbH, a supplier of laser diodes, announced its successful third round financing results totaling € 3.6 M. The company plans to use the new capital to advance commercialization of its products.
Jazz Semiconductor Inc. announced that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the proposed initial public offering of its common stock.
New Market Entry
FDK Corp. announced its entry into the standard DC/DC converter market with the introduction of the Senpai series of non-isolated point of load converters. These DC/DC converters are designed for intermediate bus architecture and distributed power architecture applications that require high efficiency, tight regulation and high reliability in elevated temperature environments with low airflow.
Personnel
Xceive® Corp. announced the appointment of Jean-Louis Bories as CEO. Bories brings more than 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, gained from high profile positions with companies such as National Semiconductor and LSI-Logic.
Bill Hartman
Bill Hartman has joined The Micromanipulator Co. as president and CEO. Prior CEO, Kenneth Hollman, has retired from Micromanipulator to pursue other interests. Hartman was previously president of MesoSystems Technology. He has over 20 years of sales, business development and executive leadership experience in test equipment, telecommunications and other technology-related markets.
Mimix Broadband Inc. announced that it expanded its management team at the positions of chief technology officer (CTO), senior vice president sales and vice president operations. Damian McCann was promoted from vice president product development to the position of CTO. McCann has more than 20 years of experience in microwave and millimeter-wave component development, device modeling and design. Before joining Mimix, McCann was vice president of advanced marketing and technology for Celeritek Inc. Jim Harvey continues to play an instrumental role at Mimix as CTO Emeritus. John McCarthy joins Mimix as senior vice president sales, with extensive experience in semiconductor markets worldwide, and a background that includes analog, RF, wireless and custom/ASIC. McCarthy comes to Mimix from Peregrine Semiconductor. Donald P. Mathes, vice president operations, has over 30 years of experience managing a broad range of semiconductor and high tech manufacturing operations in the US and worldwide. From 2000 to 2003, Mathes designed, built and ramped to production a world-class semiconductor-manufacturing facility for a start-up wafer foundry in Taiwan.
Alereon Inc. announced it has selected David Shoemaker as vice president of engineering and operations. In this position, he will oversee the company’s engineering operations and manufacturing relationships. He brings the company more than a decade of industry expertise in RF, analog and ASIC architectures, as well as software and system design.
Superconductor Technologies Inc. (STI), a provider of high performance infrastructure products for wireless voice and data applications, announced that Adam Shelton has joined the company as vice president of product management and marketing. Shelton will manage all aspects of STI’s product management and marketing program. Prior to joining STI, Shelton was senior director of marketing for Motorola, where he was responsible for the marketing of Motorola Networks’ products.
SiGe Semiconductor announced the appointment of John Brewer as vice president of marketing. Brewer brings 25 years of engineering, executive management and marketing experience in the wireless semiconductor industry. At SiGe Semiconductor, he will oversee global marketing and product line management for the company’s WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS and WiMAX products together with driving new product initiatives.
picoChip has announced a significant expansion of its sales network in Europe with the appointment of David Hutton as vice president of sales Europe, and with the signing of a distribution agreement with UR Group under which Ultimate Renaissance will sell picoChip’s products through its European network of sales offices. Hutton has over 22 years of experience in the semiconductor and wireless industries, having held senior sales and marketing positions at Texas Instruments, IDT and most recently Pericom.
California Eastern Laboratories announced that Joe Larkins has joined the company as director of major accounts. Larkins will be responsible for account planning, strategy and sales to CEL’s major customers. He comes to CEL from Infineon Technologies where he led Infineon’s worldwide sales efforts with Nortel and Cisco.
EDX Wireless is pleased to announce two new appointments to its management team. Bob Shaw was appointed director of sales and holds day-to-day responsibility for all sales activities. Shaw, a 20-year veteran of the wireless industry, brings a wealth of experience to EDX, including expertise in wireless broadband. Most recently, he was executive director of sales and marketing at Wytec Inc. In complement, Jennifer Duncan has been appointed to the key position of executive director, business development and strategy. Duncan, an 11-year veteran of EDX, will build upon the company’s strength in Metropolitan Area Networks, such as WiMAX and WiFi, and expand the company’s presence in other areas. In related news, Kai Dietze joins EDX’s Product Management team after completing his doctorate in electrical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
StratEdge announced that Bob Solomon has joined the company as senior account manager. Solomon has engineering, design and development, management and sales experience in the semiconductor, telecommunications, medical, aerospace and defense industries. Solomon’s responsibilities include new business development for the company’s complete line of DC to 50+ GHz packages, stripline filters, and assembly and test services. Prior to joining StratEdge, Solomon was regional sales manager for Corning Gilbert, Microwave Division.
RFMW Ltd. welcomes Steve Kim to its sales team as regional sales engineer for the GA, AL, MS and TN territories. Kim has 16 years of experience in RF and wireless communications product development with various companies in Atlanta and is knowledgeable in system design for cell phones, pagers, spread spectrum radios, WLAN products, CATV amplifiers, CATV set tops and bi-directional amplifiers. Russ Dahl has also joined the RFMW sales team as the regional sales engineer for the Midwest. Dahl has worked at Arrow Electronics where he was director of RF technical marketing and Richardson Electronics as business unit manager for solid-state and components.
Rep Appointments
Richardson Electronics announced a global distribution partnership with TeraVicta Technologies, Austin, TX, to distribute its complete line of MEMS-based RF switching solutions. In related news, Richardson Electronics Ltd. announced a franchise distributor partnership agreement with Radiotronix Inc., Oklahoma City, OK. Under terms of the agreement, Richardson will distribute, on a global basis, the entire line of Wi.232 DTS and frequency hopping spread-spectrum modules, as well as the Wi.M family of developer-controlled, spread-spectrum capable products developed by Radiotronix.
LitePoint Corp., a manufacturer of high quality, high performance advanced wireless test solutions, announced a new partnership agreement with TestMart Inc. to provide a product catalog and government marketplace services to better serve and expand LitePoint’s federal customer channel. The agreement authorizes TestMart to present LitePoint WLAN, MIMO and Bluetooth test solutions to the US government and military markets.
Micro Lambda Wireless Inc., Fremont, CA, has appointed GMB Partners to represent the company’s products in Korea. Associated Technical Sales will handle the company’s products in Southern California.
Web sites
Agilent Technologies Inc. announced a web-based discussion forum for network analyzer customers to collaborate with peers and Agilent engineers around the world. Customers may use the forum to ask network analyzer questions, share perspectives or read about prior discussion topics. For more information, visit www.agilent.com/find/agilent_naforum.
Rogers Corp. announced the creation of its new web site for the Chinese market. This site can be accessed on the company’s home page by visiting www.rogerscorporation.com and clicking on the Chinese Welcome message.