Around the Circuit
INDUSTRY NEWS
Andrew Corp. has agreed to buy closely held Celiant Corp. for $470 M in cash and stock. Boards of both companies unanimously approved the deal. The deal represents the largest-ever acquisition by Andrew Corp. After the deal, Andrew will become the world's largest independent supplier of wireless power amplifiers.
Mitec Telecom Inc. completed its transaction to acquire selected assets from Com Dev International Ltd. The transaction, which increases MITEC/BEVE's production capacity and overhead absorption, is expected to be cash earnings accretive to fiscal 2003.
REMEC Inc. has purchased, in a sale approved by the US Bankruptcy Court, substantially all of the assets of Spike Broadband Systems Inc. for cash consideration of $4 M. In connection with the acquisition, REMEC entered into a contract expected to result in sales of approximately $17 M with a major European integrator for the delivery of fixed wireless broadband systems over the next three years.
SEMX Corp. has entered into a letter of intent with an undisclosed party to sell the stock of American Silicon Products B.V. Terms of the letter of intent were not disclosed and are subject to the completion of due diligence and requisite approvals.
Dupont Electronic Technologies has purchased a 16.6 percent equity interest from Merrimac Industries Inc. for a purchase price of approximately $5.3 M. The companies have also agreed to work together to better understand the dynamics of the markets for high frequency electronic components and modules.
Stratos Lightwave Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Tsunami Optics Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, Tsunami will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Stratos and the Tsunami shareholders will receive approximately 3.2 million shares of Stratos common stock. Stratos will also assume approximately $5.9 M of debt, plus certain expenses in connection with this transaction.
StratEdge announced that Transcom has agreed to purchase StratEdge's LCC, DC to 23 GHz leaded packages. Transcom, a Taiwan-based semiconductor manufacturer, designs and manufactures GaAs FETs and MMICs specifically for microwave systems including VSAT amplifiers.
Microsemi Corp. announced an official name change for its integrated circuit businesses located in Carlsbad, Garden Grove, Irvine and Los Angeles, CA. The new name, Microsemi Integrated Products , provides a uniform identity for the circuit design centers, analog/mixed signal design and manufacturing operations, and for the product development center.
Olympus Integrated Technologies America Inc. , a wholly owned subsidiary of Olympus Optical Co. Ltd. , has formed the Olympus Partnership Development Group (PDG) . PDG was formed to enhance the success of partner companies through technology and business alliances. Olympus PDG has established a model for developing multi-faceted partnerships whereby Olympus can supply the technical capabilities, resources and/or financial investment of the Olympus Corp.
Hittite Microwave Corp. has opened a third international sales office, Hittite Microwave Asia Ltd. , located in Seoul, Korea. This office will house a staff of sales engineers that will directly support the company's expanding Asian customer base in China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.
Cadence Design Systems Inc. and Agilent Technologies Inc. announced a far-reaching, multi-year technology alliance that is expected to accelerate electronic product development. Through this alliance the companies expect to develop and market complete integrated solutions to speed the design of ICs for the wireless and wireline communications industries. In related news, Agilent has entered into an agreement with Agere Systems to incorporate Agere's patented software technology, the Schur Complement Preconditioner for harmonic balance simulations, into Agilent's electronic design automation (EDA) products.
Anritsu Corp. and 7 layers AG have announced that they will collaborate in the area of RF conformance testing for 3GPP W-CDMA. 7 layers will develop a suite of tools to work with the Anritsu ME7873A W-CDMA test system, which will simplify and speed up the testing of 3D user equipment.
Spectrian Corp. announced that its model MCPA4080 power amplifier has passed FCC certification for a wide variety of air interface formats. In particular, the FCC has type-approved the amplifier for CDMA, TDMA, GSM and EDGE formats, making the deployment of GSM mobile telephone service and EDGE data services possible over existing TDMA networks.
Labtech , part of the Intelek Group, has received Underwriters Laboratory approval for softboard circuits manufactured using specialist microwave substrates RF35 and RF35P from Taconic .
Palomar Technologies' chairman Gary Cist 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.
IFR Systems Inc. announced GPRS handset testing capability aimed at repair centers that service and maintain GPRS mobile handsets. Designed specifically for service operations, the 2935 radio test system offers service organizations a convenient way to upgrade their workshop's capability.
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 $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.
Superconductor Technologies Inc. reports sales of $2.1 M for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2001, compared to $3.5 M for the same period in 2000. Net loss was $5.0 M (83¢/common share) compared to $3.5 M (31¢/common share) for the fourth quarter of last year.
CONTRACTS
Unity Wireless Corp. has received purchase orders worth approximately $1 M from US-based customers for the delivery of RF power amplifiers. The orders are comprised of two different models of the company's UltraTechª line of RF power amplifiers.
Merrimac Industries Inc. has received a Multi-Mix" order from a leading defense contractor to provide a sophisticated three-dimensional multiplayer integrated assembly for use in an electronic countermeasure application. The potential revenue to be derived from this order is approximately $600 K and anticipated future follow-on orders for the next 12 months is currently estimated at approximately $1.4 M.
Aethercomm Inc. has announced the award of two new contracts. The first award is from Metric Systems Corp. to design, develop and manufacture 51 high power, L-band power amplifiers in support of Metric's data link transmitter product line. The second contract is from the US Navy for 20 high power L-band power amplifiers in support of the US Marine Corps' TPN30 Radar System.
Modelithics Inc. was awarded a contact from Delphi Automotive Systems LLC to supply computer-aided-engineering (CAD) models for a range of commercial parts used in high frequency electronic designs.
LPKF Laser & Electronics AG recently sold two new laser systems. A MicroLine Laser was acquired by a North American company and will be used for laser direct patterning. The second purchase, a newly developed laser system, used for the production of 3D molded interconnect devices (3D-MID), has been ordered by an application center in southern Germany. The order volume for both systems comes to roughly $1.26 M.
General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems has selected high performance computing and visualization systems from SGI to power the US Navy's new Area Defense Commander Capability system. The system uses SGI technology to provide an integrated picture of the battlespace so that a Joint Forces commander can quickly gather data on air and missile attacks and develop an air defense plan that recommends tactical placement of air defense assets from land and sea.
PERSONNEL
Stephen H. Schmidt has recently been elected to LPKF Laser & Electronics USA board of directors. He has also been named VP as well as secretary. Schmidt will still remain the general manager of LPKF USA along with the recently appointed titles.
Herley Industries Inc. has appointed William R. Wilson senior VP. Wilson will be responsible for the company's New England operations located in Woburn, MA. Prior to joining Herley, Wilson held several executive positions with Litton Laser Systems division of Northrup Grumman.
Palomar Technologies Inc. has promoted Bruce W. Hueners to VP of marketing. Hueners joined the company in 1981 and has held several engineering, sales and marketing management positions.
Sirenza Microdevices has promoted John Pelose to VP, wireless products. Pelose formerly served as the compa- ny's director of wireline products.
Tampa Microwave Labs has named Sharon Altimari VP of marketing. In this new position she will have responsibility for product marketing in addition to domestic sales development, key account support and management of the sale representatives network.
SiGe Semiconductor has named Alistair Manley director of sales for North America. Manley brings over 30 years of experience to SiGe Semiconductor, where he will oversee sales, field applications engineering support, and distribution channels for the company's broadband and wireless customers in North America.
Hittite Microwave Corp. has named Norm Hildreth director of product development. He returns to the company from Sirenza Microdevices where he served as VP of wireless products.
Trompeter Elec-tronics has appointed Satinder Otal manufacturing man-ager. His area of responsibility will include overseeing the manufacturing and manufactur- ing engineering activities for all of the company's activities. Otal brings more than 20 years of manufacturing management and engineering experience to the position.
Les Adams has joined Wood & Douglas Ltd. as a research and development engineer. His appointment will have a major impact on the company's increasing R&D requirement as it responds to the rapidly rising demand for project-based solutions. The company also appointed Mike Gathergood export sales manager. Gathergood joins the company from P-Com Inc., where he was responsible for sales and marketing in Africa and the Middle East.
REP APPOINTMENTS
Datum-Timing, Test & Measurement , Beverly, MA, has appointed Syntek , Kirkland, WA, to represent its full line of products in Washington, Oregon and Alaska.
Filtel Microwave Inc. has appointed Tactron Elektronik GmbH as exclusive representatives covering Germany for Filtel's filter and diplexer products.
UltraRF Inc. , a wholly owned subsidiary of Cree Inc. , announced the appointment of Arrow Electronics Inc. to handle its RF power semiconductor products in North America. Under the terms of the agreement, Arrow's RF Vision Group will support UltraRF's high power, high performance LDMOS RF power semiconductors throughout North America.
Trompeter Electronics , Westlake Village, CA, has signed Halco Inc. , Redmond, WA, as its sales representative for Northwestern America, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia and Alaska.
di/dt Inc. has selected Brilliant Technologies Co. , a division of Macnica Inc. , Yokohama, Japan, to sell and provide support for its DC/DC converters throughout Japan.
Mimix Broadband Inc. , Webster, TX, has made several manufacturer's sales representatives appointments in targeted regions worldwide to sell the company's GaAs MMIC products for millimeter-wave wireless communications applications. Gruber and Associates will cover Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina; High-tech Sales will be responsible for the New England region, while Harwood Associates will handle northern New Jersey and New York. Microwave Component Marketing (MCM) will cover Florida, Advanced Communications Electronics will cover Southern California, and Thorson Desert States Inc. will be responsible for Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada. Internationally, DehRon Ltd. will represent the company in Israel, Melcom Electronics Ltd. will do so in the UK, Emcomp Scandinavia AB in Sweden, Sematron Italia S.r.l. in Italy and SHOSHIN Corp. will cover Japan.