Around the Circuit
INDUSTRY NEWS
UK-based Bowthorpe plc has announced that its specialist power supply subsidiary, Switching Systems International (SSI) , Anaheim, CA, has acquired the business and certain assets of Orange, CA-based Conversion Equipment Corp. (CEC) . By obtaining CEC’s custom power supplies for equipment manufacturers, SSI is now positioned to enter the telecommunications market. The integration of process and product technologies in the combined companies is expected to produce more than $30 M in revenues this year.
Ducommun Inc. has acquired Fullerton, CA-based American Electronics Inc. (AEI) , a privately held manufacturer of high precision actuators, stepper motors, fractional horsepower motors and resolvers. AEI will now operate under Ducommun’s Carson, CA-based Jay-El/DMT subsidiary, a supplier of RF/microwave and illuminated products for Hi-Rel/space, automated test equipment, cellular and wireless, aerospace and defense applications.
Giga-tronics Inc. , San Ramon, CA, has completed its acquisition of Microsource Inc. of Santa Rosa, CA, a manufacturer of yttrium iron garnet-tuned oscillators, filters and microwave synthesizers. The all-cash transaction involved an exchange of $1.5 M in addition to contingent future payments based on Microsource’s earnings during the next two years. The company will function as a wholly owned subsidiary of Giga-tronics.
Rosenberger Hochfrequenztechnik GmbH & Co. , Tittmoning, Germany, has acquired a major share of Carlberg & Sons , Stockholm, Sweden, a distributor of coaxial connectors and value-added cable assemblies. The new Rosenberger Carlberg AB operation will provide local service and support for coaxial connector and cable customers.
Application-specific IC developer American Microsystems Inc. has opened new sales offices in Fleet (Hampshire), UK and Milan, Italy in an attempt to expand its presence in Europe and ensure direct support for original equipment suppliers who require digital and mixed-analog/mixed-digital design expertise. The UK- and Italy-based offices can be contacted at +44 (0) 12 52-61 33 00 (e-mail: tcollins@amis.de) and +39 03 22 83 23 07 (e-mail: pcnaj@azzurra.it), respectively.
UK-based Labtech Ltd. , a division of Intelek plc , has opened a 4500-square-foot microwave circuits research facility in Presteigne, Wales to coincide with the company’s 15th anniversary. As an integral part of the company, the new Labtech Special Project Division will research and evaluate materials, processes and PCB packaging technologies for customers involved in microwave design and manufacture.
Mitec Wireless , a division of Mitec Telecom Inc. , has tripled the production capacity of its Tinton Falls, NJ facility by adding 14,000 square feet of manufacturing space and improving process flow. The 26,000-square-foot operation will be used for the design and manufacture of cellular and personal communications service amplifiers and integrated subsystems for the wireless industry.
EPI MBE Products Group has moved to an expanded facility to accommodate its product-specific assembly areas, internal welding and machining shops, and expanded effusion cell and system production areas. The company’s new address is 4900 Constellation Dr., St. Paul, MN 55127 (651) 482-0800, fax (651) 482-0600 or e-mail: info@epimbe.com.
Coaxial cable manufacturer MICRO-COAX has moved its headquarters to a 90,000-square-foot facility that more than doubles the company’s manufacturing, research and administrative space and allows additional room for future growth. The facility also incorporates class 100 and 1000 clean rooms for the construction of space-qualified assemblies and components, and for x-ray inspection and packaging applications, respectively. The new address is 206 Jones Blvd., Pottstown, PA 19464-3465 (610) 495-0110, fax (610) 495-6656.
High volume, RF, application-specific coaxial relay manufacturer RelComm Technologies Inc. has moved to a 23,500-square-foot facility located at 610 Beam St., Salisbury, MD 21801 (410) 749-4488, fax (410) 860-2327.
In an attempt to streamline development and manufacturing capabilities, surface-mount oscillator manufacturer SaRonix has consolidated and moved its Palo Alto, CA-based world corporate headquarters and Cedar City, UT-based North American operations to a new 68,000-square-foot facility located in Menlo Park, CA. The newly combined operation houses a 5000-square-foot clean room for crystal and oscillator production and allows room for the future addition of a quick-turn, ceramic-packaged crystal oscillator line.
Arlon, Materials for Electronics , East Providence, RI, has completed a major expansion program under which new research and development capabilities and advanced coating materials and systems were introduced, and additional technical/field service staff were hired. The expansion allows Arlon to offer a variety of specialty flexible materials, including adhesive-coated dielectrics, copper laminates and coated copper. In related news, Arlon has signed a licensing agreement with DuPont Co. , Wilmington, DE, that allows the company to incorporate DuPont’s nonwoven aramid-reinforced materials in its laminates and prepreg circuit materials for complex printed wiring boards, laminate-based multichip modules and chip carrier packages.
Los Alamos National Laboratory has received authorization from the Department of Energy to begin construction of Atlas, a 30-million-ampere pulsed-power machine that will be used for the US’ nuclear weapons stewardship program as well as basic scientific research. Atlas will be housed in a 35,000-square-foot building at the laboratory’s Technical Area 35 and is scheduled to begin operations in 2000. The machine will utilize powerful magnetic fields to simulate extreme pressures inside nuclear weapons, allowing researchers to study the physics and aging effects of these weapons. It also will be used for materials science, ultra-high magnetic field experiments, plasma physics and geophysics. The total project cost is $43 M.
Alcatel Network Systems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co.’s (HP) Telecom Management Division are jointly expanding their network management solutions for telecommunications service providers with multivendor telecommunication management network environments. Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel and Hewlett-Packard will enhance their existing product lines that enable out-of-the-box support for multivendor network management. The companies have already begun working together to ensure that HP’s management proxies are compatible with Alcatel’s HP OpenView™-based 1320 NM network management system. In related news, Alcatel and Objective Systems Integrators Inc. (OSI) have announced an internetworking agreement between Alcatel’s 1320 NM network and OSI’s NetExpert™ operations support system (OSS) framework. Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel 1320 NM customers who choose NetExpert for higher layer management functions will be able to achieve integrated OSS capabilities.
Sewon Telecom , Seoul, South Korea, has entered into large-scale production of Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) wireless handsets using CommQuest Technologies Inc. ’s GSM-XL chipsets. As part of CommQuest’s Total System Solution,™ Sewon received RF, baseband, type-approved GSM protocol software and test support to manufacture the handsets. In related news, CommQuest has announced that in only eight weeks it successfully completed the design of an analog wireless telephone for SOS Wireless Communications , Irvine, CA. The accelerated design schedule was accomplished using CommQuest’s reference design and analog chipset inside SOS’ three-button telephone package. CommQuest will supply the AMPS-XL series chipsets to SOS over the next two years.
San Jose, CA-based Fujitsu Compound Semiconductor Inc. (FCSI) has named Palm Bay, FL-based Component Distributors Inc. (CDI) the first distributor of its GaAs and laser system products. Under the terms of the agreement, CDI will distribute FCSI’s microwave and mm-wave RF devices for cellular, handset, broadcast and satellite communications; lasers and photodetector devices for photonic communications systems such as fibre channel, gigabit ethernet and OC-192/10 Gbps telecom systems; and ultra-high speed logic for high performance computers and workstations.
IBM and STMicroelectronics have announced a joint effort to accelerate development of advanced system-on-chip products. The two companies have concluded agreements to exchange intellectual property and jointly develop ICs for current and future data storage applications and information appliances, such as Web browsers, hand-held computing devices and other multimedia devices. The agreement also will allow the companies to develop chips for new low cost information and multimedia appliances.
IFR Systems Inc. , Wichita, KS, and QUALCOMM Inc. , San Diego, CA, have signed a license agreement granting IFR and its subsidiaries the rights to use and continue development of QUALCOMM’s test software for production testing of code-division multiple access subscriber units. When combined with IFR and other test instruments, the software performs IS-98A parametric testing and allows fully automatic testing of completed handsets including the critical intermodulation immunity check, which is an essential factor in providing satisfactory handset operation. The production test software also includes calibration capabilities to optimize test system accuracy by compensating for cellular equipment errors and external losses.
Newbridge Networks Corp. and Stanford Telecommunications Inc. (Stanford Telecom) have formalized their long-standing development relationship by signing an agreement whereby Newbridge Networks will integrate modem technology developed by Stanford Telecom into its broadband wireless solution. The agreement reportedly broadens the Newbridge" end-to-end solution offered to broadband wireless operators using microwave and mm-wave frequencies to deliver data, Internet traffic, and voice, video and multimedia services to business and residential customers.
Toshiba Corp. has selected PDF Solutions Inc. ’s yield-enhancement software to maximize yield, performance and profitability across many of its semiconductor product lines. Toshiba is incorporating PDF’s pdEx software suite to identify sources of yield loss and predict yield under different processing conditions across multiple fabs and product lines. This new approach reportedly bridges the gap between design and manufacturing data, resulting in an enhanced understanding and subsequent solution to solving the process and design architecture issues that affect yield and performance.
Warren, NJ-based ANADIGICS Inc. has announced that it has manufactured and shipped over 100 million GaAs ICs since its founding in 1985. More than 750,000 of the ICs are being utilized in cable modems.
Analog Devices Inc. , Norwood, MA, has announced that several customers and hardware/software developers are endorsing its new 32-bit ADSP-21100 SHARC series digital signal processors (DSP), including Hewlett-Packard Co. , which will incorporate the DSP in its digital receiver products; Peak Audio , which will utilize the DSP to develop digital audio products for the professional audio industry; and Picker International , which will use the DSP in future advanced medical imaging technologies, including computerized tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, nuclear medicine and x-ray applications.
Beaverton, OR-based Tektronix Inc. is voluntarily recalling its models TDS210 and TDS220 oscilloscopes after determining that certain incorrect use of the products could cause the ground connection to fail, exposing users to the risk of serious personal injury or death. Although Tektronix has received reports of situations in which the ground lead on the oscilloscope has opened when the products were used incorrectly, the company is not aware of any injuries to users. The recall applies to approximately 60,000 oscilloscopes with serial numbers below BO49400 or CO10880 and BO41060 or CO11175 for the TDS210 and TDS220 units, respectively.
The Dallas, TX-based Decibel Products division of Allen Telecom Inc. has received US patent number 5,739,731 for the self-tuning resonant cavity filter utilized in its autotune combiners. The technology enables the cavity to be precharacterized, which allows the combiner to tune to the proper frequency quickly and precisely without needing to scan the entire frequency spectrum.
Emerson & Cuming Microwave Products Inc. , Randolph, MA, has been certified to the ISO 9001 quality system standard.
Richardson Electronics Italy Srl , Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, has received ISO 9002 certification and Richardson Electronics Benelux, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has received both ISO 9001 certification for its medical x-ray tube reloading station and ISO 9002 certification for its medical distribution warehouse.
M-tron Industries Inc. recently named Howard Jappe Co. 1997 Representative of the Year for increasing sales in the New England area by more than 200 percent over 1996’s figures. In addition, several awards were presented to individual sales representatives for their outstanding performance in 1997. Among the winners were Barb Day of Howard Jappe Co. (1997 Inside Salesperson of the Year), Ron Ricchi of Ram Electronic Sales (1997 Outside Salesperson of the Year) and Sheldon Wiseman of Pipe-Thompson Technologies (1997 Rookie Salesperson of the Year).
Antenna and amplifier manufacturer Micro Pulse Inc. , Camarillo, CA, has been named one of the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in Los Angeles by the 1998 Los Angeles Technology Fast 50 program.
FINANCIAL NEWS
Northrop Grumman Corp. reports sales of $2.1 B for the second quarter, ended June 30, compared to $2.2 B for the second quarter last year. Net income was $93 M ($1.34/diluted share), compared to $108 M ($1.59/diluted share) for the same period in 1997. The company reports that these losses are due primarily to additional costs for previously announced plant closures and cost increases on its models E-8C and E-2C surveillance aircraft.
Watkins-Johnson Co. reports sales of $53.7 M for the second quarter, ended June 26, compared to $72.7 M for the second quarter last year. Net loss was $6.2 M (75¢/diluted share), compared to a net income of $886 K (10¢/diluted share) for the same period last year. These losses reportedly reflect the decline in the market for semiconductor equipment that occurred during the second quarter.
ANADIGICS Inc. reports sales of $22.7 M for the second quarter, ended June 28, compared to $25 M for the second quarter last year. Net income was $320 K (2¢/diluted share), compared to $3.6 M (24¢/diluted share) for the same period last year.
General Microwave Corp. reports sales of $5.9 M for the first quarter, ended May 30, compared to $5 M for the first quarter of 1997. Net income was $440.3 K (36¢/share), compared to $167.8 K (14¢/share) for the same period last year.
CONTRACTS
Raytheon Systems Co. , a unit of Raytheon Co. located in Lexington, MA, has been awarded a multiyear US Army contract valued at $107.5 M for the production of its Thermal Weapon Sights and Driver’s Vision Enhancers. The contract (referred to as Thermal Omnibus) is a combined procurement designed to equip US Army and Marine Corps forces cost effectively with proven thermal imaging systems that will enhance their combat ability significantly. The Thermal Weapon Sight is an infrared sight that is light enough to be used on rifles and other infantry weapons, including machine guns. The Driver’s Vision Enhancer is a thermal imager for military combat and tactical wheeled vehicles that incorporates Raytheon’s uncooled focal plane array technology. Under the terms of the three-year contract, Raytheon will produce 4020 Thermal Weapon Sight units and 1300 Driver’s Vision Enhancers with deliveries scheduled to begin in late 1999. The work will be performed by Raytheon’s Sensors and Electronic Systems operations in Dallas, TX and El Segundo, CA. In related news, Raytheon Systems Co. also has received a multimillion-dollar follow-on production contract from AVIMO Ltd. for a high performance thermal imaging and fire-control sight for British army Scimitar light armored vehicles. The value of that contract was not disclosed.
Communication system manufacturer Stanford Telecom has received contracts valued at $6.7 M from WorldSpace Corp. to provide development and system integration services, including incorporation of terrestrial repeaters, which are a critical component in the WorldSpace digital audio and multimedia satellite network. Stanford Telecom also is developing the WorldSpace Business System business and network management software, which is the foundation of the business operations for the WorldSpace network.
Microwave and electronic system, equipment and component supplier General Microwave Corp. , Amityville, NY, has been awarded a $3.3 M contract from an undisclosed customer for the fabrication of integrated microwave assemblies. The terms of the contract call for the design and production of more than 600 units over a one-year period for use in electronic warfare simulators to be constructed for the US government.
M-tron Industries Inc. has been awarded a contract from an undisclosed telecommunications equipment manufacturer for frequency control products. The contract is valued at $600 K.
Aydin Telemetry , a division of Aydin Corp. , has been awarded a contract from Aermacchi SpA, Venegano Superiore, Italy, calling for Aydin’s series 2000 telemetry system upgrade. Under the terms of the contract, Aydin Telemetry will upgrade Aermacchi’s existing S2000 telemetry preprocessor system with an option for the future expansion of its ground system with lower cost, VMEbus-based S6200 modules while maintaining full use of the S2000 system.
Acting as subcontractor to Sanders, a Lockheed Martin company, SAL Inc. of Salisbury, VT has completed the first phase of a contract awarded to Sanders by Naval Air Systems Command and sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Phase one of the contract called for the design and construction of SAL’s model XRS 2000/2 third-generation x-ray stepper and a dense plasma focus source designed by Science Research Laboratory Inc. (SRL). Sanders will use the SAL point source stepper to build devices for advanced microwave applications, including spaceborne communication and avionics equipment for civilian and military use. Phase two of the contract will fund integration of the stepper with the SRL point source, which will enable US companies to utilize x-ray lithography technology without purchasing a synchrotron source.
PERSONNEL
Semi Dice Inc. has appointed Dan Cormack VP. Cormack also will continue to perform his duties as division manager at the Semi Dice Southern California Division.
Wireless Inc. has announced two promotions, including Donald H. MacLeod as VP, sales and marketing; and William E. Kunz as VP and GM of the Wireless and RAN Business Unit. Prior to these appointments, MacLeod was sector VP of the Asia-Pacific region and Kunz was VP of engineering and chief engineer.
Alpha Industries has named Ron Cavalieri director of sales, application-specific products. Previously, Cavalieri was western regional sales manager at the company. In addition, the company has appointed Steven Otenti manager, GaAs fab production. Most recently, Otenti was Fab 6 operations manager at Digital Semiconductor.
K&L Microwave Inc., a Dover Technologies company, has announced several personnel appointments, including Jeff Burkett as director of sales, European region (also including Israel, Africa and South America); Mike Giarratano as director of sales, Pacific Rim region; Craig Larson as regional sales manager in the Mid-Atlantic states as well as New York, Ohio and Indiana; Paul Leo as director of international business development; and Al Knezevich as subsystems and tunable filters business unit manager. Previously, Burkett was K&L’s international product specialist, Giarratano was in a sales management position, Larson was in an international sales position, Leo was international sales manager and Knezevich was GM at Philips Electronics’ Airpax Group.
Kimberly M. Keefe has joined Radiall Inc. as national distributor sales manager. Keefe brings to the position 19 years of experience in the connector industry, including various sales and marketing positions at Amphenol Corp.
Duncan M. Smith has been appointed manager of engineering at TRW Milliwave Inc. Formerly, Smith was product line manager for MMIC modules at TRW’s GaAs Telecom Pro-ducts division.
Philip J. Anthony has been named VP, engineering at E-TEK Dynamics Inc. Previously, Anthony was director of passive devices and integrated optical modules at Lucent Technologies’ Microelectronics Group.
REP APPOINTMENTS
The Eimac Division of Communications & Power Industries Inc. , San Carlos, CA, has appointed Richardson Electronics Ltd. , La Fox, IL, to represent and distribute its entire product line to selected international territories, including Central and South America and the Pacific Rim countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Polese Co. , San Diego, CA, has appointed Disman Bakner , Mountain View, CA, to market its thermally enhanced, controlled thermal expansion composite metal products in Northern California.
WEB SITES
Manufacturers’ representative Allis Associates Inc. , Cupertino, CA, has developed a new Web site that features RF and microwave components for commercial wireless systems applications. The site, which is located at http://www.allis.com, features engineering aids such as smart charts to convert SWR to return loss, dBm to watts and noise figure to noise temperature. Links to the company’s application notes also are provided.
Communications & Power Industries Satcom Division (formerly Varian Microwave Equipment Products ) has redesigned its Web site in an attempt to offer easier accessibility and interactivity. The new design features scroll-down menus to aid in locating products, data sheets produced in HTML and Acrobat formats, a low bandwidth version of the site for quick downloading and additional response space for users. The site can be accessed at http://www.cpii.com/satcom.
Dow-Key Microwave , Ventura, CA, has expanded its Web site to include its 150-page print catalog, sales representatives, job opportunities, a visitor’s guest book and a part number search engine. In addition, an information page is available that details the company’s history and present-day capabilities. The site is located at http://www.dowkey.com.
Polese Co. has updated and expanded its Web site to include information on its new lightweight, low cost AlSiC solutions, which have been added to its thermally enhanced, controlled thermal expansion composite metal product line. The site can be accessed at http://www.polese.com.