Microwave Journal
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Around the Circuit

July 16, 2004

Industry News

Tore N. Anderson

Tore N. Anderson died suddenly on April 14, 2004. He was 83 years old. He was one of the pioneers of the microwave industry and was widely recognized for his work in waveguide structures and antennas. He held a number of patents in the field. He spent most of his professional career at Airtron (now a division of Litton) and was also active in IEEE and on various Standards Committees. He was born in Sweden and came to the United States at the age of 3-1/2. He received his degree from Cooper Union in New York and served in the Army Corps of Engineers during WWII. Tore had a very positive attitude and could see the good side of any situation. He was also a teacher and mentor to many young engineers. He leaves a large family and will be sorely missed by all who knew him.

RF Micro Devices Inc. (RFMD) announced that it has completed the acquisition of Silicon Wave Inc. The acquisition of Silicon Wave expands RFMD’s total addressable market and is expected to complement its position in handsets. RFMD is currently ramping volume production of Silicon Wave’s Bluetooth components for handsets manufactured by a tier-one handset maker. In addition to handsets, the company’s Bluetooth products are in use supporting multiple applications, including headsets, printers and PC peripherals.

Dielectric Laboratories Inc. (DLI), Cazenovia, NY, announced the acquisition of Voltronics Corp., Denville, NJ. Voltronics Corp. is a designer and manufacturer of high Q RF and microwave frequency multi-turn variable capacitors. Voltronics products are utilized in the instrumentation, industrial, commercial telecommunications, military and medical imaging markets. DLI, a Dover company, is a designer and manufacturer of specialty high frequency ceramic components for niche applications in fiber optic networks, military, wireless communications networks, semiconductor and transportation markets.

Lockheed Martin Corp. announced that Intelsat Ltd. will acquire Lockheed Martin’s COMSAT general business. The purchase price is $90 M in cash, with an option for Intelsat, in certain circumstances, to substitute up to $40 M in stock for cash. The transaction is not expected to have a material impact on Lockheed Martin’s results or financial position. The acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, is anticipated to be completed by year’s end.

REMEC Inc. announced that it has sold its fixed wireless access (FWA) systems related assets and manufacturing services to Axxcelera Broadband Wireless Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Moseley Associates Inc., that provides solutions and systems for the global broadband wireless market. As part of the sale, certain assets and liabilities, including contracts, employees and leases, will be transferred to Axxcelera. In an unrelated transaction, REMEC has sold its antenna and artificial intelligence (AI) related assets to the owner of Optimal RF, a California start-up company. The sale of these assets and elimination of the FWA, antenna and AI activities and liabilities going forward will strengthen the company’s financial position and improve its operating expenses with an impact of less than one percent of revenues.

Park Electrochemical Corp. announced that, effective immediately, its Nelco SAS subsidiary, located in Mirebeau, France, is being integrated into the company’s Neltec group of businesses. The Neltec group of businesses currently consists of Neltec Inc., Tempe, AZ and Neltec SA, Lannemezan, France. The company’s Neltec group of businesses focuses exclusively on high performance digital and RF/microwave materials for high end electronic applications. Consistent with this change, Nelco SAS is being renamed Neltec Europe SAS. Although the new Neltec Europe SAS will continue to service its existing customers with its existing product line, the new emphasis for Neltec Europe SAS will be to drive technology in the European market.

Nordic Semiconductor has changed its company name from Nordic VLSI, in a move designed to identify the company as a semiconductor supplier. Founded in Norway in 1983, the company started as a traditional ASIC design house, selling consulting services to individual customers. Over the last 10 years, Nordic has gradually and purposely transitioned itself from design services to component delivery, principally with the aim of becoming a supplier of standard RF components. The company is now a European fabless semiconductor supplier of standard RF components.

Unity Wireless Corp. announced that it has signed a manufacturing agreement with APEX-Micro Manufacturing Corp., Delta, British Columbia. Under the agreement, APEX-Micro will manufacture electronic assemblies locally for final testing assembly by Unity Wireless.

EPCOS has strengthened its UK distribution network by signing a new franchise distribution agreement with Anglia. The agreement complements Anglia’s current passive portfolio which already includes a broad range of the company’s inductors, chokes, varistors, thermistors and GDTs, along with film standard and suppression products.

ANADIGICS Inc. announced that it has begun shipping InGaP, HBT, WLAN power amplifiers to a supplier of WLAN chipsets for PC notebooks.

Elcoteq Network Corp. announced that it has joined the WiMAX Forum. As a member of the WiMAX Forum, Elcoteq is dedicated to supporting its clients and the communications industry by manufacturing products and providing supporting services that adhere to the IEEE 802.16 standard.

Aeroflex Inc. received this year’s Frost & Sullivan Award for Growth Strategy Leadership in May at the 2004 Excellence in Industrial Technology Awards Banquet in Miami, FL. The award is given each year to the company that has demonstrated an exceptional growth strategy within its industry.

C-MAC MicroTechnology has announced TS16949 certification of C-MAC Microcircuits Inc., its North American hybrid circuit manufacturing facility, located in Sherbrooke (Quebec), Canada.

Contracts

Vishay Intertechnology Inc. has contracted Modelithics Inc., Tampa, FL, for the development of characterization models representative of the high frequency performance of Vishay’s series of high precision silicon-based RF capacitors. Modelithics, specializing in RF/microwave device modeling and characterization, has developed a Global Model™ characterizing Vishay’s HPC0402 capacitor on various substrates and PC boards. The Global Model for this capacitor, validated through 20 GHz, is available from Modelithics for use in design software such as Agilent® ADS®, Applied Wave Research Microwave Office and Eagleware GENESYS™.

Agilent Technologies Inc. announced Rohde & Schwarz has selected Agilent’s Virtual Instrument Software Architecture (VISA) I/O instrument library for inclusion with its test and measurement instruments. Agilent’s VISA was created to standardize I/O software across physical interfaces and between multiple vendors. The companies have worked together closely on standards for instrument communications. Agilent’s VISA was selected because its open approach allows standard connectivity through LAN and USB interfaces as well as conventional GPIB and RS-232 connectivity.

Financial News

Ansoft Corp. reports sales of $17.8 M for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2004 ended April 30, 2004, compared to $15.1 M for the same period in 2003. Net income was $2.8 M ($0.24/per share), compared to a net income of $2.5 M ($0.21/per share) for the fourth quarter of last year.

New Market Entry

Coaxant Inc., a recently formed manufacturer of custom RF and microwave connectors, offers particular focus on replacing other manufacturer’s obsolete parts. The Coaxant team boasts over fifty years of experience in the manufacture of stainless steel, brass and other specialty metal designs for markets including wireless, commercial communications and military defense. The company offers a full range of proven, cost effective engineering capabilities, enabling it to meet customers’ performance requirements to 18 GHz.

Douglas Carlberg

M2 Global Inc. announced that its president and chairman of the board, Douglas Carlberg, has been appointed to the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME), board of directors. Carlberg also serves as the southwest regional president for AME and is leading a team in the development of benchmarking opportunities and training classes. Previously, Carlberg worked for Harris Corp.

EMS Wireless, a division of EMS Technologies Inc., announced the appointment of Soren Pihlman as vice president and deputy general manager, effective immediately. In this new position, Pihlman will lead the division’s operations and engineering efforts. The company also announced the promotion of Dave McKay, currently vice president of engineering, to the newly created role of chief technical officer — wireless, where he will concentrate on future-oriented technology and the vision for EMS Wireless.

AMI Semiconductor announced that John Kent has been appointed to serve as the company’s vice president of technology research and development. Kent joins AMIS from IBM where he was the manager of ASIC and array development for the company’s microelectronics division.

COMARCO Wireless Test Solutions has appointed Milton Yoshimura and Johnson Li to run its new offices in Brazil and China, respectively. These offices provide wireless carriers with equipment that is used to optimize the quality of service the carriers provide to customers. Yoshimura has nearly 30 years of telecom engineering and management experience in Latin America. He joins the company from TWS where he was COO and general manager. Li has more than 20 years of engineering, marketing and management experience, mostly in the wireless sector. He joins COMARCO from ASCOM Asia-Pacific Ltd., where he was wireless product marketing director and chief company representative in China.

Günter Möbius recently became managing director of IMS Connector Systems GmbH, replacing Dr. Otto Hintsch, who will be retiring in September 2004. Möbius intends to further extend the company’s market position and innovative product development capabilities. Before joining IMS Connector Systems, he was a member of the executive board of Sauter AG in Basel, responsible for the marketing and sales divisions. In that role he actively contributed to positioning the product range and preparing the ground for the company’s activities in South East Asia, the Middle East and the US.

Herley Industries Inc. announced that Vincent Baglio has assumed the responsibilities of general manager for Herley’s Farmingdale operation. Baglio began his career with Northrop Grumman on Long Island, NY. He advanced through engineering assignments of increasing responsibility, culminating with his assignment as product manager for the E-2C Hawkeye program. Baglio came to Herley from Smith’s Aerospace Electronic Systems, where he served as director of engineering, responsible for all product development, program management, IR&D and prototyping activities for the Bohemia, NY and Pompano Beach, FL facilities.

Rep Appointments

Richardson Electronics, a provider of engineered solutions for the RF and wireless communications market, has signed a distribution agreement with Z-Communications Inc., a privately-held US manufacturer of voltage-controlled oscillators (VCO) and highly integrated signal source solutions, including compact phase locked loop (PLL) modules. Under the terms of the agreement, Richardson will operate as worldwide distributor for Z-Comm’s complete line of VCOs and PLLs for the commercial, consumer and wireless communications markets.

Hittite Microwave Corp. announced the appointment of a sales representative firm for select customer accounts in China and Hong Kong. Secom Telecom Co., established in June 1993, is headquartered in Shenzhen, China, and is an experienced electronic component distributor in China and Hong Kong. Secom can be contacted via telephone at (86-755) 2515 5888, via fax at (86-755) 2515 5816 or e-mail at sales@secomtel.com. In addition, Hittite also announced the appointment of a sales representative firm to serve customers in Norway. Bredengen AS, headquartered in Oslo, Norway, is a full service communication components company. Bredengen can be contacted via telephone at +47 21 00 91 00, via fax at +47 21 00 91 01 or e-mail at bredengen@bredengen.no.