Obituary
William Cuming, who helped start Emerson & Cuming in 1948, died of pneumonia on May 28 in Boston, MA. Born in New York City, Cuming earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1942 and an MBA from Harvard University in 1947. Along with Cherry Emerson, he started Emerson & Cuming, a company that designed epoxy resins and coatings to protect components. The company eventually employed more than 700 people. Cuming and Emerson sold their company to W.R. Grace in 1978. After the sale of Emerson & Cuming, he launched a new technologies company called Cuming Corp., a supplier of flotation and insulation materials to the offshore oil and gas industry. A sister company, Cuming Microwave Corp., manufactures radar-absorbing materials and microwave materials for the electronics and aerospace industries. A World War II veteran, Cuming was 88 years old.
Industry News
Skyworks Solutions Inc., an innovator of high reliability analog and mixed signal semiconductors enabling a broad range of end markets, announced its acquisition of Axiom Microdevices, a volume supplier of CMOS-based power amplifiers for mobile phones. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed and will have no significant impact to Skyworks’ operating expenses. Accordingly, the company expects the transaction to be earnings per share neutral in fiscal year 2009 and accretive thereafter.
Curtis Industries, a division of Powers Holdings Inc., and a Milwaukee manufacturer of electronic EMI filters and wire interconnect terminal blocks, acquired the Filter Networks, Salisbury, MD brand of EMI filters and filtered connectors.
Valpey Fisher Corp. and Kernco announced that the two companies are collaborating on technology, marketing and manufacturing products that address the satellite communications business.
Remtec Inc., a manufacturer of metallized ceramic substrates and packages with Plated Copper on Thick Film Technology (PCTF®), and Microwave Packaging Technology Inc. (MPT), Anaheim, CA, a leader in the design, test and assembly of microwave modules and components, have announced a strategic alliance to integrate their core competencies. By combining these capabilities, Remtec and MPT establish a single, reliable source for the design, test and manufacture of advanced microwave and millimeter-wave packages and modules built with PCTF technology.
Freescale Semiconductor announced that it has partnered with Flextronics to create a high performance reference design for the Enterprise WLAN access point market. Based on Freescale’s PowerQUICC® II Pro MPC8377E processor, the IEEE® 802.11N access point reference design offers a comprehensive, production-ready solution that scales from 400 to 800 MHz and speeds time-to-market.
Agilent Technologies Inc. announced that Simplay Labs, Shanghai, China, has selected Agilent’s HDMI test solution for source, sink and cable certification at its new test center. This purchase continues the long-term relationship between Simplay Labs and Agilent to further develop devices for HDMI standards. The test center at Simplay Labs is designed to promote industry-wide interoperability among products using HDMI and High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP).
WIN Semiconductors announced the availability of a set of design kits for its PP25 family of 0.25 µm optical gate PHEMT technologies for use with Advanced Design System (ADS) EDA software from Agilent Technologies. The WIN PP25-00 kit also supports a complete ADS front-to-back end MMIC design flow with scalable devices, native design rule checker (DRC) and latest layout capabilities in ADS 2009, which is the latest release from Agilent EEsof.
Modelithics and Auriga Measurement Systems announced the placement of an Auriga AU4750 pulsed IV measurement system at Modelithics. Modelithics is now integrating the AU4750 into its overall transistor characterization and modeling strategy.
AWR announced that users of AWR’s Microwave Office design software now have access to XML library data for a broad array of microwave amplifiers from TriQuint Semiconductor Inc.’s San Jose design center (formerly WJ Communications). The devices include packaged gain-blocks, field effect transistors (FET) and heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) amplifiers.
The US Department of Defense (DoD), through the Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA), has granted Tahoe RF Semiconductor Inc., a fabless RFIC company and Wireless Electronic Design Services (EDS) provider, accreditation as a Microelectronics Trusted IC Supplier for the DoD and all other US Government customers. The DoD requires that all Mission Assurance Category I systems employ only Trusted IC service(s) to fabricate its custom designed ICs.
Aeroflex announced its IFF-45TS avionics test set has received official certification from the US Department of Defense (DoD) International AIMS Program Office. The IFF-45TS test set is now AIMS certified to perform testing and validation on identification, friend or foe (IFF) Mode 4 and 5 transponders and interrogators. In addition, the IFF-45TS will perform testing on DME/TACAN interrogators.
Richardson Electronics Ltd. announced that it has been named “Distributor of the Year” by Microsemi Corp.’s Power Products Group. This distinction, presented annually by the Microsemi Sales and Marketing teams, goes to the distributor who has consistently shown exemplary design, sales and logistics support to Microsemi’s global customer base.
Contracts
Comtech Telecommunications Corp. announced that its Maryland-based subsidiary, Comtech Mobile Datacom Corp., received orders totaling $6 M under its Movement Tracking System, or MTS contract, with the US Army. Total orders received to date against the $605.1 M MTS contract increased to $535.2 M.
TriQuint Semiconductor, an RF products manufacturer and foundry services provider, announced that it has been awarded leadership of Phase III of a multi-year gallium nitride (GaN) research and development contract by the Army Research Laboratory (ARL). The contract, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), was awarded based on TriQuint surpassing Phase II goals. The overall program is designed to develop new high power, wideband GaN amplifiers for a range of defense applications.
Micro Systems Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Herley Industries Inc., has achieved a significant milestone on the Korea Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (KMSAM) program. Working as a key team member with Composite Engineering Inc. (CEi) of Sacramento, CA, the company has integrated its MONTAGE ground control station with the CEi developed BQM-167i high performance aerial target. In early May, 2009, the Korean missile successfully engaged the target system and the target aircraft was recovered normally.
RF Micro Devices Inc. (RFMD) announced that the company has been selected by a smartphone manufacturer to supply its RF2815 GPS LNA module for use in a soon to be released CDMA smartphone. This new smartphone is expected to launch in the second half of calendar 2009 in North America. The feature-rich, dual-band CDMA device will be manufactured by the Taiwan-based smartphone manufacturer and will feature a leading open source mobile operating system.
New Market Entry
RFaxis is a provider of RF chips, specifically designed to address the critical path needs of the burgeoning wireless market. Founded in 2007 and based in Irvine, CA, the company’s game changing technologies hope to redefine and simplify RF integration with single chip solutions that deliver both high performance and cost efficiency. Leveraging BiCMOS technologies, along with its own innovative approach and technology, RFaxis has developed an RF front-end integrated circuit. Now, design engineers will have access to a single chip, single die device that simplifies their design task and lowers end product cost, while delivering high RF sensitivity.
Personnel
Park Electrochemical Corp. announced the appointment of Patrick Crowley as Vice President of Research and Development. In this position, Crowley will be responsible for the company’s global research and development activities. Crowley had previously been President of Nelco Products Pte. Ltd. in Singapore.
Crane Aerospace & Electronics, a segment of Crane Co., has announced the appointment of Simon Abel as Director of Sales, Standard Power for the Electronics Group. Abel will be responsible for the Field Sales organization and for driving sales in current and emerging markets. Abel joined Crane in 1988, opening a sales office in the United Kingdom to serve the European market.
TRAK Microwave Corp., a Smiths Interconnect business, appointed Keith Morrison as Director, Business Development for Integrated Microwave Assemblies (IMA). Morrison joins TRAK Microwave from Avnet Inc., where his last position was Business Development Manager. Morrison earned his BSEE from the University of South Florida, and brings to TRAK Microwave a successful 23-year career in the RF/microwave industry, with proven skills in both technical and sales responsibilities.
Centellax has added three sales positions to its US sales team. Perry King, Regional Sales Manager–US Components, comes to Centellax with over 20 years of technical sales experience. He has previously worked with Inphi, Iterra Communications and Anadigics. Rob Crowe, Regional Sales Manager–East Coast Test Products, has previously worked for LeCroy, Yokogawa and Fluke. He has 30+ years experience in sales and account management. Cindy McMillan, Regional Sales Manager–California Test Products, has more than 15 years experience. She brings a wealth of knowledge from her previous engineering positions at Delco Systems, TRW and Hewlett-Packard.
Rep Appointments
Greenray Industries has chosen Akon Electronics India (A.E.I.) to exclusively represent them in India. A.E.I.’s sales office is in the ideal location of Bangalore. A.E.I. is a division of Akon Inc. USA, who has successfully been conducting business in India for over a decade. In 1994, Akon USA established a full microwave manufacturing facility and sales office (Akon Electronics India) in New Delhi to better serve the Indian Defense Market. A.E.I. has since expanded its sales offices to Bangalore and Hyderabad.