Industry News

• Fluke Corp., a leader in portable, professional electronic test tools, announced the acquisition of DH Instruments Inc. (DHI). DHI is a manufacturer of high performance pressure and gas flow standards, including calibration process software. DHI also offers A2LA accredited pressure and gas flow calibration services, as well as metrology training courses at its facility in Phoenix, AZ. Under the agreement, DHI will become part of the Fluke Precision Measurement division, joining the Fluke calibration product and service teams.

• Wurth Elektronik eiSos Group announced the acquisition of Midcom Inc. The previous owner, the Holien Group, sold the transformer division for strategic reasons. Midcom Inc. is based in Watertown, SD, with the majority of the staff employed in the production facilities in Longgang near Shenzhen and in Fuling near Chongqing, China.

• Silicon Laboratories Inc., a leader in high performance, analog-intensive, mixed-signal integrated circuits (IC), announced a definitive agreement with NXP, formerly Philips Semiconductor. NXP will purchase the Aero transceiver, AeroFON™ single-chip phone and power amplifier product lines, for $285 M in cash, with additional earn-out potential of up to an aggregate of $65 M over the next three years.

• Harris Corp. and Stratex Networks Inc. announced the completion of the transaction that has created a new company—Harris Stratex Networks Inc. The new company brings together the former Harris Microwave Communications Division and Stratex Networks Inc. The new company, with calendar year 2006 revenue of about $650 M, is the largest independent provider of wireless transmission network solutions, with customers in over 150 countries.

• Bliley Technologies Inc., an international provider of crystal-based frequency control solutions, and Allan Space-Time Solutions LLC, led by renowned atomic clock physicist, David W. Allan, have teamed up to form a new, co-owned company, EQUATE Space-Time Technologies LLC. EQUATE Space-Time Technologies’ immediate plans include development of a test system to prove the company’s technology concepts.

• Power Module Technology Inc. (PMT), formerly IMT RF Products, announced the teaming of solid-state RF power industry veterans, Terry Simons, Bobby McDonald, Dave Gill and Sam Klein. PMT’s focus is to provide customers with RF power pallets and modules that are high power, wideband and highly reliable. These cost-effective, 50 ohm building blocks serve a multitude of applications for the broadcast, industrial, scientific and military markets. The company’s established high volume manufacturing capability, combined with quick turn-around development capability, allows PMT to offer customer specific products as well as a wide range of standard RF power products. The company is located in Carson City, NV. For more information, visit www.PMTRF.com.

• Andrew Corp. has significantly expanded its strategic relationship with PCT International Inc. and its holding company, Andes Industries Inc., through an agreement that will combine the companies’ broadband cable assets and create the first global entity that provides complete last-mile cable connectivity solutions to the broadband industry. Under terms of the agreement, Andrew will receive approximately $16 M in cash and short-term notes, and will convert an existing note from Andes into a 30 percent equity stake in Andes, a Gilbert, Arizona-based developer, manufacturer and distributor of products for broadband communications networks.

• Nurad Technologies, a division of Cobham Defense Electronic Systems, announced the recent acquisition of a new 10 foot diameter by 20 foot length autoclave. This autoclave will provide Nurad with the capability to manufacture large RF composite structures (up to 8’ ¥ 18’), as well as providing additional manufacturing capacity for smaller products. Nurad designs and produces state-of-the-art composite structures for use in RF and millimeter-wave antenna systems. These structures are built with the latest materials and are designed using a proven, Cobham developed electromagnetic simulation tool that yields first pass success on complex shapes. This new addition to the Baltimore, MD facility enables Nurad to offer the high quality, high performing composite structures demanded by the largest antenna systems.

• RF Micro Devices Inc. (RFMD) announced the official opening of its new customer support center in Shanghai, China. The new facility underscores RFMD’s growing presence in Greater China and the company’s commitment to expansion in the world’s largest market for cellular handsets. The new center will expand RFMD’s capacity to support wireless customers throughout the Far East by expanding and complementing RFMD’s operations in Beijing and Shenzhen, China, and Taipei, Taiwan.

• Provigent, a provider of system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions for the broadband wireless transmission market, has moved its offices from Los Altos to Santa Clara, CA. The new office details are: Provigent Inc., 3333 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA 95054 (408) 701-2250, fax: (408) 715-0188.

• RF Monolithics Inc. (RFMI) announced the acceleration of the restructuring plan for its components business. This restructuring includes completing the process of outsourcing all Dallas, TX manufacturing and becoming fabless. The company expects to increase the profitability of the components business by leveraging existing lower-cost contract manufacturing relationships. This action will enable the company to increase its focus on the wireless solutions business.

• American Technical Ceramics (ATC), a manufacturer of high performance electronic components, including capacitors and thin film circuits for a broad range of commercial and military applications, announced the official commencement of an outsourced passive component finishing and assembly operation in Costa Rica. ATC will be working with CAMtronics s.a., an electronics contract manufacturing firm located in the Zeta Free Zone Industrial Park in Cartago, Costa Rica.

• Auriga Measurement Systems LLC announced that it has entered into a multi-year research project with Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, on development of RF characterization and modeling tools. Auriga hopes to have the university’s initial efforts on display at the MTT show in Hawaii this year.

• QUALCOMM Inc. announced the expansion of its product roadmap to include HSPA+. The next generation of WCDMA systems, HSPA+ delivers broadband mobility at unparalleled data speeds and a superior user experience for applications such as Internet browsing, realtime location services, multimedia sharing and other services that can become a fundamental part of everyday life with the freedom that mobility can offer. QUALCOMM will sample the Mobile Data Modem™ (MDM™) MDM8200™ solution, a chipset supporting HSPA+, by the end of 2007. The MDM8200 solution will support deployments in existing frequency bands, as well as in the 2.5 GHz IMT-2000 extension band.

• White Mountain Labs, an innovative leader in test and characterization of advanced technologies, announced that its new lab facility, The Center for ESD, has been certified as a suitable lab by the US Defense Supply Center, Columbus (DSCC).

Contracts

• Agilent Technologies Inc. announced that it has been awarded a $12.6 M contract by Raytheon Co., Tucson, AZ. Under the contract, Agilent will deliver an advanced, next-generation automated manufacturing test platform. Raytheon expects this new platform to provide benefits in cycle time, test equipment utilization and labor content.

• Merrimac Industries Inc. announced that it has received an order for $430,000 to supply several Multi-Mix® Microtechnology products for a next generation military communications satellite program. The satellite communications system is designed to significantly improve communications for mobile US forces. Merrimac was selected based on the company’s ability to provide dividing and combining devices that are able to handle high RF power, provide low insertion loss, and are contained within a caseless fusion bonded assembly. The program significantly improves communications for warfighters while maintaining backward compatibility to the existing communications systems for the US Department of Defense.

• Elcom Technologies Inc. announced the receipt of an order valued at $428K from Rockwell Collins in support of the FAB-T program. The order was for a quantity of Elcom’s ruggedized type synthesizer. This is a follow-on order, which Elcom previously received last year, which was valued at approximately $819K.

• W.L. Gore & Associates has been awarded the contract to provide GORE™ Umbilical Assemblies for the A-10 Precision Engagement (PE) Kit by Lockheed Martin. This is the second contract awarded to Gore for the A-10 program following the initial award of PE kits to the A-10 Prime Team in March 2005.

Financial News

Fairchild Semiconductor announced the successful completion of the previously-announced tender offer by one of its wholly owned subsidiaries to acquire up to 100 percent of the outstanding shares of System General Corp. for NT$93 per share.

Tower Semiconductor Ltd. reports sales of $187.4 M for the year end 2006, compared to $94 M (excluding $8 M income in 2005 from a technology-related agreement) for the same period in 2005. Net loss for the year was $87 M ($1.05/per share), compared to a net loss of $203 M ($3.06/per share) for year-end of last year.

Silicon Laboratories Inc. reports sales of $111 M for the fourth quarter ended December 30, 2006, compared to $110 M for the same period in 2005. Net income for the quarter was $5.2 M ($0.09/per diluted share), compared to $15.3 M ($0.27/per diluted share) for the fourth quarter of last year.

ANADIGICS Inc. reports sales of $49.1 M for the fourth quarter of 2006 ended December 31, 2006, compared to $33.3 M for the same period in 2005. Net loss for the quarter was $0.1 M ($0.00/per share), compared to a net loss of $3.9 M ($0.11/per share) for the fourth quarter of last year.

Ansoft Corp. reports sales of $22.7 M for the third quarter of fiscal 2007 ended January 31, 2007, compared to $19.7 M for the same period in 2006. Net income for the quarter was $6.3 M ($0.24/per diluted share), compared to a net income of $4.3 M ($0.16/per diluted share) for the third quarter of last year.

RF Industries Ltd. reports sales of $4.1 M for the fourth quarter ended October 31, 2006, compared to $3.4 M for the same period in 2005. Net income for the quarter was $473,000 ($0.13/per diluted share), compared to a net loss of $119,000 ($0.04/per diluted share) for the fourth quarter of last year.

Personnel

Jerry Brown has been named president of LBA Technology Inc., an international supplier of communications products and infrastructure. Since August of 2005, he has held the position of vice president of sales for the LBA Group, including both LBA Technology Inc. and Lawrence Behr Associates Inc.

Nextreme Thermal Solutions, a manufacturer of advanced thin film thermoelectric components designed and produced to address the thermal management needs of the electronics, photonics, bio-tech and defense/aerospace industries, has recently appointed Seri Lee as chief technology officer. Prior to joining Nextreme, Lee served as senior thermal scientist for the Silicon and Platform Solutions Group at Intel Corp., where he was responsible for executing corporate thermal directions for consumer products and technology development requirements.

International Manufacturing Services Inc. (IMS) announced the appointment of Daniel Ziroli to director of sales and marketing. Ziroli brings more than 30 years of elec- tronics industry experience to IMS, and has served in a number of senior sales and management positions for companies including SRC Devices, Crydom Corp., Douglas Randall and Elmwood Sensors.

• Cobham Defense Electronic Systems announced the addition of Dennis “Denny” Mitchell as director, sales and marketing Nurad Technologies. Mitchell brings over 30 years of experience in the field of microwave communications and antenna experience to Nurad. He was formerly a design engineer for Raytheon’s RADAR Receiver lab in Wayland, MA. Mitchell also founded Microwave Research and Manufacturing, a subsystems house in Hopkinton, MA, and was a vice president of millimeter-wave products for the OMRON Corp.

• Q Microwave Inc. announced the appointment of Dan Czagany as sales manager of the company. With more than 25 years of marketing and sales experience within the RF and microwave industry, Czagany brings a wealth of knowledge to the company’s growing business opportunities. His experience includes sales of a variety of microwave components and subsystems for military, industrial and commercial applications. His past positions were with companies including REMEC Defense and Space Inc., KW Microwave Inc., Integrated Microwave Corp. (IMC) and Andersen Laboratories.

Renaissance Electronics announced the appointment of Gabe Romero to the sales staff. Romero is a 2005 graduate of MIT and will be a member of the RF subsystems product group. His main focus will be supporting existing base station product customers in North America.

Rep Appointments

Electronic component distributor Digi-Key Corp. and FlexiPanel announced the signing of a global distribution agreement. FlexiPanel develops wireless ZigBee and Bluetooth solutions, and provides a seamless wireless integration solution for developers of not only microchip MCUs but also developers who are not generally familiar with RF. FlexiPanel’s products provide a simple path to add ZigBee or Bluetooth to an existing or new product and reduce the design/software knowledge requirement by including the ZigBee and Bluetooth software stacks on the MCUs.

• TRAK Microwave Corp. announced the appointment of Broadband Technical Sales as the company’s exclusive sales representative in northern California. Broadband will represent TRAK Microwave Corp.’s microwave products. Broadband can be reached at: Broadband Technical Sales, 1745 Saratoga Avenue, Suite 206, San Jose, CA 95128 (408) 813-5000, e-mail: john@broadbandtech.com or visit www.broadbandtech.com.

• precisionWave Corp. announced the selection of Sellex Corp. as its exclusive sales representative in the Republic of Korea. Sellex is a dynamic, full service, high technology manufacturer’s representative and export management firm specializing in the Republic of Korea’s (South Korea’s) high technology industries with offices located in Seoul, Korea and Las Vegas, NV. Sellex will promote, sell and support precisionWave’s line of low cost, high performance RF test instruments.