Around the Circuit
INDUSTRY NEWS
Micronetics Wireless Inc. has entered into an agreement with the principal shareholders of Enon Microwave Inc. providing for them to vote in favor of a merger of the two companies. The proposed transaction is subject to certain contingencies and expected to be completed before the end of March.
Rogers Corp. has acquired certain product lines of Cellect LLC for $10 M, plus a potential earnout in five years based upon performance. Sales of the purchased business were approximately $14 M in 2001. Under the terms of the agreement, Rogers will acquire the intellectual property of all the elastomeric product lines as well as the products and equipment of the continuous sheet product lines.
Paradise Datacom LLC , a subsidiary of Intelek plc , entered into a conditional agreement with Sierra Networks to purchase the business and assets of Sierra's Satcom division. The total purchase price is $4.968 M.
Advanced Power Technology Inc. (APT) has completed the acquisition of the business and assets of GHz Technology Inc. , which includes approximately $7.9 M of net cash. The purchase was for approximately $13.5 M and 1.5 million shares of APT common stock. In addition APT will issue options to purchase approximately 700 K shares of APT in exchange for outstanding GHz stock options and for the retention of key GHz employees.
Wireless Telecom Group Inc. has acquired Microlab/FXR for a net purchase price of $3.8 M in cash. Microlab/FXR had over $5 M in revenue in 2000 and exceeded $7 M last year.
SEMX Corp. will sign a letter of intent with an undisclosed party to sell its domestic wafer reclaim operation located in Providence, RI. Terms of the letter of intent were not disclosed.
Gabriel Electronics has acquired Endwave Corp.'s antenna business. The assets acquired in this transaction include intellectual property related to advance microwave and millimeter-wave antenna solutions such as the GemFire™ and WavShapr™ products, including patents and patent applications.
Telenor has completed the acquisition of COMSAT Mobile Communications (CMC) . The company is combining CMC with Telenor Satellite Mobile to form Telenor Satellite Services.
Hittite Microwave Corp. has opened a second international sales office, Hittite Microwave Deutschland , located in Rosenheim, Germany. The office will house a staff of sales engineers that will support the company's expanding European customer base. The address of the new office is Winterweg 7, 83026 Rosenheim, Germany 08031 97654, fax 08031 98883.
Park Electrochemical Corp. has opened its newest business center in Wuxi, China, to support the growing customer demand for advanced multiplayer printed circuit materials in China. The business center operates under the name Nelco Products (Wuxi) Co. Ltd. The address and telephone of the center are Lot 226C, Xin Chuang Si Lu, Wuxi-Singapore Industrial Park, Wuxi 214028, Jiangsu Province, China 86-510-528-1100, fax 86-510-528-2200.
Strand Marketing Inc. recently moved to a new 3000 square-foot headquarters. The new building is located at 10 Railroad Street, Newburyport, MA 01950.
European Antennas Ltd. has built a new spherical near field test facility on site to provide a fast supply of radiation pattern data to accompany existing and new antennas and to verify specifications during the development procedure. Data can be provided in a variety of different formats to meet customers' exact requirements.
Rosenberger Hochfrequenztechnik GmbH & Co. has opened a sales office in the Netherlands. Rosenberger Benelux is responsible for customers in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg.
Anritsu Co. , GGB Industries and Keithley Instruments have formed a technology partnership resulting in the development of a test solution for wafer level process monitoring of communication devices and other high speed digital devices.
Honeywell has signed a worldwide distribution agreement with Richardson Electronics . Richardson will supply Honeywell's family of RF attenuators, RF switches, optical transceivers and direct conversion "radio on chip" products for customers, globally, through its worldwide sales network and global application support centers.
PMC-Sierra and TDK Semiconductor announced a marketing collaboration to deliver complete physical layer solution for DS3 and E3 applications. The solution features PMC-Sierra's TEMUX™ and S/UNI® product families working with TDK's family of DS3/E3 line interface units for routers, multi-service switches, DSLAMs, digital cross-connects and SONET/SDH add/drop multiplexers.
Somera Communications has entered into a licensing agreement with Pivotal Corp. to support the company's strategy to further build its strategic asset in data through a customer management system.
Labtech has received funding from the European Union's Information Society Technologies program for participation in the SMACKS project. Together with partners Alcatel Wireless Transmission Division , Thales Microwave , TMI , the TNO Physics and Electronics Laboratory and UMS , Labtech will be developing surface-mount insertion techniques suitable for broadband communications devices operating at Ka-band frequencies.
Microsemi Corp. has received 10 new design wins for its patented MMSM wafer scale antenna switch technology used in 802.11a and HiperLAN2 type wireless LAN access points and PC cards.
Silicon Wave Inc. has been certified to the international quality standard ISO9001. The ISO9001 standard is a set of internationally recognized quality management system requirements that provide guidelines for consistent quality management practices across international borders.
Datum Irvine has received TL 9000 certification. Thus far only 70 telecommunications equipment manufacturers worldwide have achieved this level of certification.
Andrew Corp. has completed construction of the first commercially deployed non-line-of-site MMDS system for CommSpeed , Prescott, AZ. The upgraded network allows CommSpeed to expand its wireless offerings to include service areas for customers not served by their existing system.
RF Solutions Inc. announced the development of CellLAN™, a wireless, multi-band, multi-standard RFIC transceiver technology. It incorporates the company's previously announced WLAN dual-band WiFLEX™ technology with enhanced capability to operate in the cellular telephone spectrum.
FINANCIAL NEWS
RF Micro Devices Inc. reports sales of $100.6 M for the third quarter ended December 31, 2001, compared to $79.9 M for the same period in 2000. Net income was $3.5 M (2¢/diluted share) compared to $7.8 M (5¢/diluted share) for the third quarter of last year.
Ansoft Corp. reports sales of $12.5 M for the second quarter ended October 31, 2001, compared to $9.7 M for the same period in 2000. Pro forma net income was $1.3 M (10¢/diluted share) compared to a pro forma net income of $773 K (6¢/diluted share) for the second quarter of 2000.
Vari-L Co. Inc. reports sales of $5.7 M for the first quarter ended September 30, 2001, compared to $11.5 M for the same period in 2000. Net loss was $1.1 M (16¢/ share) compared to a net loss of $201 K (3¢/share) for the first quarter in 2000.
Unity Wireless Corp. has closed a private placement of Units to raise $926 K. Funds received from the private placement will be used to increase the company's cash reserves for working capital, finance the company's rapid expansion and help finance additional purchase orders received for shipments early this year.
Spirea AB has received $11 M in its second round of funding. Prime Technology Ventures (PTV) is the lead investor in this round with additional financing from NIB Capital Private Equity and Vantech . The existing investors are also participating in the financing.
CONTRACTS
AKON Inc. is being awarded a $9.73 M firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for super crystal video receivers and associated data. This contract combines purchases for the US Navy and the governments of Egypt, Bahrain, Turkey and Taiwan under the Foreign Military Sales Program. Work will be performed in San Jose, CA, and is expected to be completed by December.
Unity Wireless Corp. has entered into its second major supply agreement with a Chinese customer to provide RF power amplifiers valued at $2 M over a 12-month period. In addition, Unity Wireless has agreed to develop a line of GSM amplifiers for this customer in anticipation of a similar supply agreement, which is expected to be entered into during 2002. In related news, Unity Wireless has booked purchase orders for RF power amplifiers worth $640,930 destined for export to Korean customers. The orders are for the company's Ultratech line of RF power amplifiers and represent a range of the company's mature RF power amplifier products.
MCCI Inc. has been awarded several contracts by Space Systems/Loral to supply high reliability filters, couplers and isolators for the APSTAR satellite program. Under the terms of the contracts, MCCI will design, develop, manufacture and test the components at MCCI's Hi-Rel Spacecraft Components facility in Valencia, CA.
REMEC Broadband Wireless has received an order from Thales Broadcast Multimedia for antennas and transceivers for fixed wireless access systems that will be deployed in India for Nextage Broadband Ltd. REMEC will provide its ExcelAir™ line of customer premise equipment transceivers that allow integration with ExcelAir antennas of various gains to insure optimum system performance.
Paradise Datacom has received a contract from Dow Jones & Co. worth approximately $1 M for C-band, 200 W solid-state amplifiers (SSPAs). The SSPAs will be supplied in redundant configuration and will replace older 400 W traveling wave tube amplifiers.
PERSONNEL
Global Communication Devices (GCD) has appointed Kenneth O as chief technology officer to drive the company's future development of advanced highly integrated wireless semiconductor technologies. He brings 20 years of experience in the semiconductor technology space to complement the company's executive and product teams.
Rogers Corp. has promoted Mario Kerr to VP of marketing and sales. Most recently, Kerr served as director of marketing. In his new assignment he will be responsible for global sales and marketing activities for the corporation.
TECOM Industries, a TRAK Communications Co., has appointed Arsen Melconian director of engineering at its Thousand Oaks, CA facility. Melconian will be responsible for design, modeling, simulation, testing and new product development for commercial, defense and space antennas and systems.
Wireless Valley Communications Inc. founder, chairman and chief executive officer Theodore S. Rappaport has accepted a faculty position at the University of Texas in Austin. Rappaport will join the electrical and computer engineering department as the William and Bettye Nowlin Chair in Engineering in the Fall of 2002.
REP APPOINTMENTS
Sophia Wireless Inc. , Chantilly, VA, has appointed Strategic Marketing Associates (SMA) , Campbell, CA, to be its exclusive representative for the Northern California area.
Renaissance Electronics Corp. , Harvard, MA, has made a pair of manufacturer's representative appointments. Testime Technology Ltd. , Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK, will market Renaissance's product line of circulators/isolators, power dividers/combiners and transceivers in the UK. Blackhart Inc. , Roy, UT, will market the company's products in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Montana.
Sierra Microwave , Georgetown, TX, has appointed First Source Inc. as sales representative of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
di/dt Inc. , Carlsbad, CA, has selected Brilliant Technologies Co. , a division of Macnica Inc. , Yokohoma, Japan, to sell and provide support for its DC/DC converters throughout Japan.
Tensolite Co. Inc. has appointed S & S Technology Inc. as the company's official representative in Southern California, southern Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. The company also appointed Midtec Associates Inc. to cover Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and southern Illinois.
SiGe Semiconductor signed an agreement with Insight Memec as part of its strategy to expand global distribution channels. Under the agreement, Insight Memec will serve as SiGe's primary distributor in the PAN-European region, providing technical sales and marketing, inventory and asset management, and account management services in support of SiGe's broadband cable and wireless product lines. In related news, SiGe expanded its sales and customer support network in North America under agreements with Electronic Engineering & Sales , Micro-Electronic Components Corp. and Quality Components Inc. The manufacturers representatives will provide sales and support services for SiGe's entire portfolio of wireless and broadband devices.