Around the Circuit
INDUSTRY NEWS
EMX Corp. has completed the sale of the business and assets of its subsidiary American Silicon Products Inc. (ASP) to Exsil Inc. , a subsidiary of Rockwood Specialties Inc.
NEC Electronics (Europe) has announced a reorganization of its business structure. NEC's operations are now moving away from being country-focused to being restructured into four main business units, all of which will operate across Europe and will each address a key market segment: Industrial and Distribution; Automotive; Communications; and Mobile and Customer. This change is designed to re-gear the company for the challenge of the European market and the challenging business environments that exist across the region.
TECOM Industries Inc. , a TRAK Communications company, has implemented several major organizational changes. In the pursuit of commercial and government antenna business, the company has redefined its engineering and marketing departments. TECOM's engineering team is now at full strength with additions in both RF antenna and mechanical engineering design talent. The marketing and sales teams have been divided into focused commercial and government business development groups.
Fox Electronics has significantly expanded its custom frequency control product development capability, and established the Fox Customer Technology Center, which will be devoted to the custom development effort. The center represents an integration and expansion of Fox's design engineering and customer support resources, including Field Application Engineering, featuring additional FAWEs to interface with customers in the field, and an expanded Technical Support Group.
Sequoia Wireless plans to widen the market for GSM and GPS technologies with a new reseller and system integration business. The company will combine its technical expertise with new and existing product lines, to create new integrated solutions that will open these technologies to non-technical businesses, ranging from telemetry and remote monitoring through tracking to data collection.
Anritsu and Actix have signed an agreement under which the two companies will develop their respective third-generation network measurement hardware and analysis software products to work closely together. By making Anritsu's ML8729B portable W-CDMA area tester compatible with the Actix Planning Validation Solution software, the two companies will greatly simplify the post-analysis of 3G base station infrastructure measurements, leading to faster cell and network optimization.
Park Electrochemical Corp. has expanded its agreement with Matrix Electronics to include stocking and distribution of its N9000 RF/microwave substrates throughout Canada. The materials will be manufactured at Park's Neltec Inc. facility in Tempe, AZ. In related news, Park is now manufacturing RF/microwave materials at the Neltec high performance materials facility in Tempe, AZ.
Unity Wireless Corp. has named CIT Technology Rentals & Services (TRS) as its preferred provider of electronic test equipment used in the design, development, production and testing of the company's RF power amplifiers.
RF Solutions Inc. announced the development of CellLAN,™ a wireless, multi-band, multi-standard RFIC transceiver technology. CellLAN incorporates the company's previously announced WLAN dual-band WiFLEX™ technology with enhanced capability to operate in the cellular telephone spectrum. The new flexible transceiver architecture will enable wireless convergence of cellular and WLAN networks.
MI Technologies has signed an OEM agreement with the Anritsu Co. for the supply of vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers and other products for use in the MI-3600 family of antenna test and measurement systems.
Palomar Technologies Inc. has signed three strategic alliance agreements to provide photonic component manufacturers with a single-source for fully automated assembly, test and alignment systems. The three alliance companies are Axsys Technologies Inc. , Creative Automation and ILX Lightwave . In related news, Palomar chairman Gary Gist and president Kevin Conlon were named as two of Fortune magazine's "Heroes of US Manufacturing," an annual special section honoring companies that have achieved innovation in US manufacturing technology.
Fujitsu Compound Semiconductor Inc. announced that Fujitsu Quantum Devices Ltd. and Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. are entering into a multi-source agreement for a 10 Gbps optical networking laser diode module.
Osprey Metals has added Advanced Packaging Associates (APA) , La Jolla, CA, to its North American customer support team. APA focuses its efforts mainly in the western US but provides its consultancy services for Osprey CE Alloys to customers throughout North America.
RF Solutions Inc. has launched its PartnerCHIP™ Program, which is designed to provide a complete dual-band wireless LAN chipset reference design supporting 802.11a and 802.11b/g requirements. The new program provides a framework for bringing new products to market at a rapid pace by promoting the company's power amplifiers and WiFLEX™ multiband RF transceiver family with Partners baseband/MAC chip technology to provide customers with complete chipsets, reference design and unified technical support.
The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) has approved the IEEE Standard 802.15.1 ("Wireless MAC and PHY Specifications for Wireless Personal Area Networks"), which is adapted from portions of the Bluetooth wireless specification. The approved standard is fully compatible with the Bluetooth v1.1 specification.
ip.access ltd announced that its nanoBTS™ has achieved full regulatory compliance. The standard is monitored by BABT, the notified body of the Radio and Telecommunications Terminal Equipment in the UK. The nanoBTS is a GSM picocellular base station and is part of the infrastructure product offering from the company.
The quality management system of MECA Electronics Inc. was recently certified by DNV to the new ISO 9001:2000 standard for the design, manufacture, marketing and sale of customized RF and microwave signal control products including power divider/combiners, directional and hybrid couplers, fixed attenuators and terminations.
Spirent Communications has received Frost & Sullivan's Market Engineering Company of the Year award. In selecting Spirent, Frost and Sullivan's team of industry analysts conducted extensive research studies, including interviews with market participants and extensive secondary and technology research.
FINANCIAL NEWS
REMEC Inc. reports sales of $58.2 M for the fourth quarter ended January 31, 2002, compared to $75.1 M for the same period in 2001. Net loss was $48.2 M ($1.07/diluted share), compared with a net income of $1.3 M (3¢/diluted share) for the fourth quarter of last year.
Ansoft Corp. reports sales of $14.1 M for the third quarter ended January 31, 2002, compared to $11.1 M for the same period in 2001. Net income was $2.1 M (15¢/diluted share) compared to $1.5 M (12¢/diluted share) for the third quarter of last year.
Merrimac Industries Inc. reports sales of $7.124 M for the fourth quarter ended December 29, 2001, compared to $6.738 for the same period in 2000. Net income was $128 K (5¢/diluted share) compared to $221 K (8¢/diluted share) for the fourth quarter of last year.
Superconductor Technologies Inc. has received binding commitments totaling $13 M in a new equity private placement with institutional investors represented by Special Situation Funds, RS Investments, Palo Alto Advisors and a large institutional investment advisor. Wells Fargo LLC served as the placement agent for this transaction.
PERSONNEL
Unity Wireless Corp. has promoted Ilan Kenig to become the company's new president. Previously, Kenig served as VP of business development for the company. Kenig has over 17 years of legal, venture capital and investment banking experience with a background in the technology and telecommunications arena.
Joe Caldarelli has been appointed CEO of CPI Inc. Caldarelli has been with CPI (and its predecessor, Varian Associates Inc.) for over 20 years and has held a number of senior positions in operations, marketing and engineering.
Claes Silfverstolpe has been appointed CFO of LGP Telecom Holding AB. Silfverstolpe will take his new position in mid-May and will be a member of the Group Management of the company.
Merrimac Industries Inc. appointed David B. Miller to its board of directors. Currently, Miller is VP and general manager of Dupont Electronic Technologies.
Xicor Inc. has named Wayne Bishop director of quality and reliability. Bishop will direct all activities related to quality systems and maintaining ISO9001 and QS9000 certifications. Bishop brings over 30 years experience directing engineering, quality and foundry services in the mixed-signal semiconductor arena.
Arizona State University's College of Engineering and Applied Sciences has announced that Jeffrey S. Goss will be the new director of the Center for Professional Development and Distance Education. Previously, Goss served as the assistant director for the Center for Professional Development at the University of Michigan College of Engineering.
Omniyig Inc. has named Aristomenis Capogeannis marketing manager. Capogeannis has spent over 10 years in the semiconductor and educational software fields working in a number of roles, including software engineering, sales lead tracking, opportunity forecasting, progress planning and customer relationship.
Hittite Microwave Corp. has named Raymond T. Pavio as business development manager for Multichip Modules. Pavio will focus on the development of multichip module products for wireless and fixed wired markets as well as driving growth into new telecom markets.
Dynawave has appointed Brian Nothum as engineering manager. Nothum is responsible for the development and manufacturing support of the company's interconnect solutions. In related news, the company named Jim Shea North American sales manager. Shea brings over 25 years of interconnect technology experience to the company.
REP APPOINTMENTS
BroadWave Technologies Inc. , Franklin, IN, has appointed two representatives to market its line of coaxial passive products. STG International Ltd. , Tel Aviv, Israel, will be responsible for sales in Israel and F.L. Ohmer & Associates , Dayton, OH, is the exclusive representative for Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan.
CMC Wireless Components , Phoenix, AZ, has made a series of representative appointments. Steward Technology , Dublin, CA, will handle northern California, HyTech Associates , West Lake Village, CA, will be responsible for southern California, Micro Lambda LLC , Clarksburg, NJ, and Pasadena, MD, will be the exclusive representatives for the mid-Atlantic states.
Times Microwave Systems has named Advanced PLM Sales & Marketing Inc. a manufacturer rep for the company's LMR® telecommunications products. Advanced/PLM will be representing Times in Illinois and eastern Wisconsin.
di/dt Inc. , Carlsbad, CA, has selected Brilliant Technologies Co. , a division of Macnica Inc. , Yokohama, Japan, to sell and provide support for its DC/DC converters throughout Japan.
EM Microelectronic-US Inc. has added 12 new regional sales-representative offices to its network nationwide, boosting its ability to serve the North American semiconductor market. The new sales organizations include: Rep Inc. ; CERCO ; FCS Group LLC ; Focus Design Technologies ; Fred Board Associates ; Gibb Technology Sales ; L-Squared Ltd .; M-Rep Inc .; PMG Inc ; QXI Inc .; and VISTAssociates .
WEB SITES
Modelithics Inc. has recently launched an entirely new Web site that features information about its high frequency characterization services and model products. On-line information at www.modelithics.com is provided for accurate CAE models for RF/microwave surface-mount capacitors, inductors and resistors. Also outlined are custom characterization and modeling capabilities that include measurements of noise, S-parameters, load pull for power and linearity, DC and pulsed IV, as well as model parameter extractions for a variety of discrete and packaged diodes, transistors, MMICs and passive microwave devices. A "Related Technology" section contains links to several software and equipment providers that have formed a relationship with the company.
ITT Industries, Cannon has improved its Web site and debuted a new product selection feature that uses graphics and product photos to allow engineers to quickly find the electronic component best suited for their application. The site features all of the company's products, including those from recently acquired companies. Featured products are connectors, switches, interface controls, keypads, dome arrays and value added services.