Industry News
Smiths Group announced the acquisition of TRAK Communications Inc. for $111.5 M (GBP 63m) from Veritas of New York. TRAK will form part of Smiths Interconnect, a supplier of application specific electronics for military and commercial markets. The acquisition is the fifth Smiths has announced since presenting its interim results on March 10, bringing total expenditure to $330.5 M (GBP 187m). TRAK, with 425 employees and 2003 turnover of $71 M (GBP 40m), operates from facilities in Tampa, FL, Thousand Oaks, CA and Dundee, Scotland. Smiths Group is satisfying the acquisition consideration in cash.
Laird Technologies announced it has acquired Thermagon Inc., Cleveland, OH. Thermagon’s products include thermally conductive silicone pads, greases, phase change products, adhesives and putties. In addition to these interface materials, the company makes thermally conductive epoxy pre-preg, core laminates and metal-based circuit board laminates for printed circuit board fabricators to manufacture single layer, double layer and multi-layer circuit boards for use in heat dissipation.
The operations of Fujitsu Quantum Devices Ltd. and the electronic devices division of Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. were consolidated into a new joint venture company, Eudyna Devices Inc. The new company, which will engage in everything from development to manufacturing and sales of a wide variety of compound semiconductor devices, aims to win the trust of customers worldwide and quickly establish itself as a top compound semiconductor maker.
Motorola’s Semiconductor Products Sector began doing business as Freescale Semiconductor Inc., a subsidiary of Motorola Inc. This reorganization is part of the process to implement its previously announced separation from Motorola. In related news, Metrowerks Corp. will be a subsidiary of Freescale Semiconductor and will continue to operate under its current name.
The semiconductor operation formerly known as Filtronic Solid State has changed its name to Filtronic Compound Semiconductors. The business consisted of both semiconductor and EW groups. The EW group was recently acquired by Teledyne Technologies Inc., relocated from Santa Clara, CA and consolidated with Teledyne’s operation in Mountain View, CA. In concert with that change, the new Filtronic Compound Semiconductor has moved to a new location. The new address is 10181 Bubb Road, Cupertino, CA 95014-4133 (408) 850-5780, fax (408) 850-5725 or visit www.filcs.com.
Anritsu Co. announced the establishment of a Handheld Solutions Partners Program to better address the test needs of wireless network professionals. The creation of the partners program allows Anritsu to work more closely with industry-leading software providers to develop integrated test solutions faster and easier so field technicians and engineering management can ensure optimum performance of today’s wireless networks.
Maury Microwave Corp. has shipped its first commercially built large signal network analyzer (LSNA) from its factory in Ontario, CA. The LSNA is headed to Italy, where NMDG’s Marc Vanden Bossche will handle the installation and training. Additional LSNAs are scheduled to ship in the upcoming months.
ANADIGICS Inc., a supplier of wireless and broadband solutions, announced that the company had received initial production orders and design wins for its second generation 7 ¥ 7 mm GSM power amplifier (PA) module. The AWT6146, quad-band, GSM/GPRS PA is being adopted by manufacturers of GSM handsets and wireless handheld computing devices.
Inphi Corp., a manufacturer of analog mixed signal electronic components for computing and communications, announced that it has received certification as an International Organization for Standardization 9001:2000 Fabless IC company. Inphi received the certification for both engineering and manufacturing after review of its business practices and procedures.
ITPCO Ltd., Richmond, UK, has won an award to develop and produce an electronic tagging and tracking system for packaged items. The company won the £20,000 Smart Micro project award (now renamed Research and Development grants) from the Department of Trade and Industry’s Small Business Service, which aims to encourage innovation in England. ITPCO has been working on the development of an electronic tag that uses radio frequency identification for packages in warehouses. The result is a tag that can be invisible, water or mud resistant and stores up to 1 kbyte of information that can be read through a scanner as English sentences.
Contracts
Tyco International’s M/A-COM won a contract to build radio towers for New York’s emergency communications network. The network will cover 95 percent of New York land and is designed to withstand ice storms and hurricane-force winds. While New York officials would not release the cost of the system, industry insiders say it could be more than $1 B. Systems in other states were estimated at $350 M. Tyco apparently beat out Motorola, who has won contracts in 24 out of the 26 states building such systems. Motorola indicated it might appeal the contract award.
EMS Technologies Inc. announced that EADS Astrium has awarded its Space & Technology/Atlanta Division two contracts valued at $6.1 M for key hardware on the United Kingdom’s next-generation military communications satellite system, Skynet 5. Skynet 5 is providing military satellite communications services to all three services of the UK Armed Forces, with the new satellites due for launch in 2006 and 2007.
Unity Wireless Corp. announced an agreement with China’s ZTE Corp. to supply power amplifiers for one of ZTE’s CDMA base station models. Unity Wireless has received ZTE’s first order released under the supply agreement for approximately US$780,000. Based on current production forecasts, revenues to Unity under the agreement in 2004 could total approximately US$3.0 M.
REMEC Inc. announced it was awarded a contract for development of low cost transmit/receive (T/R) microwave monolithic integrated circuits for application to X- and Ku-band modules for the US Government. The Air Force Research Laboratory Aerospace Components and Subsystems Concepts Division, Sensors Directorate, has awarded a $675,000 contract to the MMIC division of the REMEC Defense and Space Group, to develop engineering prototype X-band and Ku-band T/R MMICs/modules and power amplifiers as low cost building blocks for future phased array radar systems that require large quantities of modules.
Agilent Technologies Inc. announced that Global Interface Technologies Inc. has selected Agilent’s Advanced Design System (ADS) electronic design automation (EDA) software and new ultra-wideband (UWB) DesignGuide to help speed development of baseband ASICs, RFICs and modules for ultra-wideband transceivers. Global Interface Technologies, with offices in Japan and the US, is a provider of electronic design services for development of large-scale integration processors, printed circuit boards and subsystems for the communications industry.
Financial News
RF Industries Ltd. reports sales of $2.5 M for the first quarter ended January 31, 2004, compared to $2.4 M for the same period in 2003. Net income was $234,000 ($0.08/per diluted share), compared to $135,000 ($0.04/per diluted share) for the first quarter of last year.
Unity Wireless Corp. reports sales of $2.4 M for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2003, compared to $2.3 M for the same period in 2002. Net loss was $3.0 M ($0.07/per share) compared to $2.7 ($0.08/per share) for the fiscal year of 2002.
Renaissance Electronics Corp. has received a multi hundred-thousand dollar PO for its systems division for switch matrices used in base station emulation modeling. The first of these units will cover the GSM and UMTS bands.
Personnel
|  | Anritsu Corp. president Akira Shiomi announced the appointment of Frank Tiernan as president of Anritsu Co., the American subsidiary of Anritsu Corp., and vice president of the parent company, Anritsu Corp. In making the announcement, Shiomi cited the success of Anritsu’s microwave measurement division (MMD) during Tiernan’s tenure as the division’s general manager as the main reason for the promotion. Prior to being general manager of MMD, Tiernan held a number of management positions for Anritsu’s microwave measurement division. | |||||||||||
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Microfabrica Inc. has elected Silicon Valley veteran, David Lam, as chairman of the board. With decades of experience managing and advising emerging technology companies, including three years on the company’s board of directors, Lam will continue to guide the company as it moves into production and expands its global presence.
| | Centellax Inc. announced the appointment of RF industry veteran Tally Costa to the position of vice president of sales and business development. Costa brings 18 years of sales-management and sales-channel experience to the position. Prior to her recent appointment she served as director, sales and marketing, at Sirenza Microdevices, responsible for the company’s amplifier product lines. | |||||||||||
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| | Semflex announced that Doug Hartje has re-joined the company in the capacity of vice president of sales. Based in Mesa, AZ, he will be responsible for management of the company’s domestic and international sales staff and sales channels. Hartje has been a presence in the microwave and RF industry for more than 25 years, including an earlier tenure at Semflex. He most recently served as vice president of marketing and sales for Dynawave, Haverhill, MA. | |||||||||||
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The Electronics Group of Crane Aerospace & Electronics, a segment of Crane Co., announced the appointment of Joe Mersereau to vice president and general manager of General Technology Corp. (GTC). In this capacity, Mersereau will be responsible for the day-to-day operational management of GTC, including all manufacturing operations as well as contract personnel services.
Elcoteq Network Corp. announced that Joe Foster has been chosen as director of operations for Elcoteq Americas. Formerly vice president, general manager of EMS provider, Solectron, Foster will oversee present and future operations in the Americas, which include Elcoteq’s manufacturing operations in Monterrey, Mexico and its new product introduction centers in Dallas, TX and San Jose, CA.
| | Trompeter Electronics announced that Tom Barber has been selected to the newly created position of director of sales for the Semflex/Trompeter business group of STRATOS International. In this capacity he will oversee the sales organizations for both companies, maintaining offices at the Trompeter Westlake Village location. Barber joined the company in late 2002, serving in the capacity of director of operations through the period that included relocation of manufacturing operations to Mesa. | |||||||||||
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Elgar Electronics Corp. announced the appointment of Jason Lee as director of technology partnerships. Lee will be responsible for identifying new products and technologies that complement Elgar’s core portfolio. His extensive international business development experience in Asia and Europe will allow Elgar to reach the best technology partners available. Lee has over 17 years of product marketing and engineering experience working for companies such as KLA-Tencor, Applied Materials and NCR.
Wireless Valley Communications Inc. announced the addition of two key individuals to the company’s management team. John Jacobs joins the company as director of product marketing and Veera Anantha joins as director of engineering. Jacobs most recently served as vice president of business development at Accton Technology Corp. Anantha previously served at Intrinsity Inc., where he was lead architect and project manager of wireless solutions.
| | MI Technologies has appointed Carlo Rizzo as European operations manager. In this new position, Rizzo will be responsible for all MI Technologies’ sales activities in Europe including the solicitation of orders, maintaining customer relationships and coordination of sales representatives and distributors. He will oversee the company’s European manufacturer representatives, marketing communications programs and coordinate product installations, customer training and support. | |||||||||||
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| | APLAC Solutions Corp. has appointed Harry Lilja as its managing director. Lilja, who previously served as CEO of Beijer Electronics, graduated from the Helsinki University of Technology in 1989 and has since held sales management positions at Parametric Technology Corp. and AMD. | |||||||||||
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AR Worldwide announced the appointment of Jack Provenzano to the position of engineering manager for AR East. A BSEE graduate of the University of Massachusetts’ Lowell Technical Institute, Provenzano brings extensive technical and managerial experience to AR. In addition to being a skilled engineer, he has developed several award-winning products and is the co-founder of two successful technology companies.
| | SiGe Semiconductor Inc. announced that Andrew Singmin has joined the company as quality manager, responsible for extending SiGe Semiconductor’s quality management system. Singmin brings to SiGe Semiconductor Inc. more than 30 years of experience in engineering, research and quality management. Most recently, Singmin served as an independent consultant developing quality systems towards achieving ISO 9001:2000 compliance for companies including Seaway Networks, Potentia and Quake. | |||||||||||
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Microtech Inc. announced the appointment of Don Effgen to the position of sales manager. Effgen comes to the company with over 25 years of industrial sales and marketing experience.
G Squared Technologies announced the addition of John Devlin to its sales staff. Devlin comes to the company with extensive sales and product knowledge for both military and commercial customers. He has held sales/marketing positions with several microwave companies, including Lorch, K&L and M/A-COM.