NAVAIR has awarded a $63.9 million contract to Foster-Miller for more of its TALON EOD robots.

Foster-Miller Wins NAVAIR Contract

Foster-Miller Inc., a wholly owned QinetiQ subsidiary in suburban Boston, has been awarded a new $63.9 million contract for TALON robots, operator and technician training and spare parts by the Robotic Systems Joint Project Office of the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAVAIR).

The additional TALONs will be deployed with the Joint Robotics Repair Facilities and embedded repair teams operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. This contract follows an award of $28 million confirmed funding under a previous $257 million NAVSEA contract for TALON EOD (explosive ordinance disposal) robots.

TALON robots are powerful, durable, lightweight tracked vehicles used for EOD, reconnaissance, communications, sensing, security, defense and rescue. They have all-weather, day/night and amphibious capabilities and can navigate virtually any terrain.

Agilent’s Microwave Systems Get LXI Certification

Agilent Technologies Inc.’s six microwave synthetic instruments are the first Class A LXI (LAN eXtension for Instruments) products to achieve certification from the LXI Consortium. These devices support the U.S. Department of Defense NxTest vision of flexible, modular and compact instrumentation.

“Our newly certified modules demonstrate Agilent’s commitment to the future of test as represented by both NxTest and LXI,” said Pat Byrne, president of Agilent’s electronic measurements group in Palo Alto, California.

The synthetic instrument concept involves linking individual hardware and software modules to emulate standard test instruments in a compact form factor. The result is a common system architecture that enables DoD’s prime contractors to design scalable, morphable automated test systems (ATS) that can accommodate new measurement applications and future technology updates. The ability to reuse or replace functional modules to suit present and future measurement scenarios will reduce the total lifetime cost of an ATS by extending system longevity and providing obsolescence protection.

Colombian Firm Deploys Savi RFID Technology

Emprevi Ltda. is deploying Savi Technology’s SmartChain™ Transportation Security Solution (TSS), which leverages real-time information from active radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies to enhance visibility management and security of container shipments.

A Colombia-based provider of logistics and security services, Emprevi Ltda. plans to integrate Savi TSS into a new service called “Global Trade Control,” which will provide clients with continuous online monitoring of cargo containers and their contents, and rapid detection and deterrence of potential security breaches.

Emprevi plans to extend end-to-end visibility of these shipments by linking their service with SaviTrak™, the global information service provided by Savi Networks. SaviTrak provides real-time information services on the location, security and integrity of containerized cargo shipments as they move throughout a global network of RFID-enabled ports and inter-linked supply chain checkpoints.

Savi TSS is based on RFID technology and software solutions developed since 1989 that have successfully tracked more than 1.5 million shipments in real-time. The active RFID devices are based on ISO 18000-7 standards operating at 433.92MHz, and the company is actively involved with the maritime industry to further develop standards for container tracking and security.

Flomerics’ Paper Selected Best of 2005 by IEEE

Award winners Márta Rencz, CEO, and András Poppe, chief marketing officer, of the MicReD subsidiary of Flomerics.

A paper written by Flomerics executives Márta Rencz and András Poppe, as well as Erno Kollar, Sándor Ress, and Vladimir Székely of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE), has been named the best of 2005 by the editors of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies. Entitled “Increasing the Accuracy of Structure Function Based Thermal Material Parameter Measurements,” the paper was selected from among nearly 100 manuscripts published in the past year’s volume of the Transactions. It appeared in the March 2005 issue (volume 28, issue 1, page 51-57).

The award was presented June 1, 2006, at the 56th Electronics and Technology Conference in San Diego.

The authors explain in the paper that structure functions provide a one-dimensional representation of the heat flow path of thermal systems and can be obtained by fast and simple thermal transient measurements. The usual way of generating structure functions considers only one heat path. Heat is switched on a point in the structure and the temperature of the point is recorded as a function of time until a steady state is reached. The structure functions are determined by direct mathematical transformations from the measured transient curves. There is always a certain error in these measurements due to parasitic heat flow moving in other directions than the one dimension that is being measured. Parasitic effects can consist of natural convection, radiation losses, and conduction through the fixture itself.

The new method developed by the Flomerics and BUTE researchers improves measurement results by accounting for parasitic heat flow. This method measures the parasitic heat flow path in addition to the thermal transients and then subtracts the thermal impedance of the parasitic branches during the phase of generating the structure functions.

The paper presented an application example involving measuring the effective thermal conductivity of a patterned printed circuit board. Also included were the results of a set of verification experiments in a vacuum chamber that considered the effects of parasitic heat flow paths with single parallel thermal resistances. The authors are currently working on considering parallel heat flow paths with their structure functions.

Rencz and Poppe joined Flomerics when it purchased MicReD, a Hungarian-based company formed in 1997 as a spin-off from BUTE. Rencz is now chief executive officer and Poppe is the chief marketing officer of the MicReD subsidiary of Flomerics. MicReD’s main product is the “T3Ster” (pronounced Trister), which provides fast, repeatable and accurate thermal characterization of IC devices, including stacked-die and system-in-package devices. The T3Ster provides nondestructive dynamic thermal characterization of packages, semiconductor devices such as diodes, BJTs, J-FETs, MOSFETs, thyristors, power LEDs, MCMs and other electronic and MEMS components.

EMS Adds Two New Directors

Francis J. Erbrick and Bradford W. Parkinson were elected to the board of directors of EMS Technologies, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia, at the annual meeting of shareholders held in May. They join the six directors who had previously been serving, and who were re-elected to additional one-year terms.

John B. Mowell, chairman of the board, said of Erbrick and Parkinson, “These are men with broad experience in both business and technical areas that are important to EMS and its customers.”

Erbrick has worked since 1997 as an information technology consultant with the business technology office of McKinsey & Company, Stamford, Connecticut. He previously spent 12 years with UPS as chief information officer. In 1994 he receiver the Carnegie Mellon Award for Excellence in Information Technology.

Dr. Parkinson is professor emeritus of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, where he continues to have substantially full-time research and student advisory responsibilities. In 2003 he won the National Academy of Engineering’s Draper Prize for his role in developing NASA’s GPS system.

EMS Technologies, Inc. is a leader in the technology of advanced wireless communications, focusing on the needs of the mobile information user and broadband applications for commercial and defense markets.

TESSCO Awarded Contract with State of Maryland

TESSCO Technologies Inc., a supplier of product solutions needed to design, build, run, maintain, and use wireless systems, has been awarded a contract with the Maryland Department of Budget and Management to provide state and local government agencies with wireless communication hardware equipment.

The contract offers state and participating local government agencies the opportunity to efficiently procure wireless antenna, transmission line and radio frequency (RF) conditioning hardware equipment from TESSCO on an as-needed basis.

Robert B. Barnhill, chairman, president, and CEO of the Hunt Valley, Maryland, company, says, “We look forward to supplying the State of Maryland and participating local government agencies with these products as needed to enhance and support the wireless public communication system in Maryland.”

Tzero & Tektronix Team

Tzero Technologies of Sunnyvale, California, the only IC supplier that enables broadcast quality video over wireless networks, is working with Tektronix, Inc., of Beaverton, Oregon, provider of test, measurement and monitoring instruments, to establish a gold standard for ultra wideband (UWB) testing.

The effort between the two companies, including new test methodologies and tools for WiMedia physical layer (PHY) validation, will ensure that commercially available UWB products meet the higher level of performance and reliability required to support wireless multimedia communications. With tested, proven UWB offerings, the industry will be able to achieve high-volume production across a variety of end-user products, including consumer electronics, computers and hand-held devices.

“Establishing exacting quality and reliability standards is critical as the market for UWB wireless multimedia connectivity evolves from the technology development stage to volume production,” said Colin Shepard, vice president, performance oscilloscopes, at Tektronix. “Test equipment from Tektronix and our work with Tzero will enable product development teams to speed time-to-market for UWB-based wireless consumer products.”

LTX Test Systems Selected by SiGe

LTX Corp. of Westwood, Massachusetts, a leading provider of semiconductor test solutions, says SiGe Semiconductor has chosen the X-Series Fusion CX as its strategic test platform. SiGe Semiconductor is using the CX for testing its RF front-end solutions for wireless communication systems.

SiGe Semiconductor has specified the X-Series Fusion CX to test devices across its full product portfolio, including Bluetooth power amplifiers, GPS transceivers, WLAN power amplifiers and front ends, and WiMAX transceivers. Multiple CX systems have been bought and deployed at SiGe’s base of subcontract test providers, with additional purchases expected as more devices are converted and new devices are released into volume production.

“The X-Series has the advanced capabilities we need to provide compre- hensive, cost-effective test coverage. With the support of LTX’s experienced applications engineering team, we are confident that we can rapidly address the emerging test challenges of our RF front-end solutions,” said Morris Tan, vice president of operations for SiGe.

KT Spearheads Mobile WiMax Operator Group

Korea’s KT Corp. has established an international community of 21 overseas telecommunications operators to build a global “roaming belt” for the service.

Axalto launched a WiBro universal IC card that will let subscribers connect to the WiBro service using a notebook PC, PDA or smart phone. KT will commercialize WiBro service in South Korea where trial services are under way in Seoul and surrounding areas.

KT and the 21 community-member companies from 15 nations in Asia, America and Europe recently gathered for the inaugural session of the WiBro Mobile WiMax Community. KT said the community is the first of its kind for mobile WiMax.

The company is a board member of the WiMax Forum, which is working to facilitate the deployment of broadband wireless networks based on the IEEE 802.16 standard.

AR “S” Series Amplifiers Maintain Signal Quality

Two “S” Series amplifiers from AR Worldwide RF/Microwave Instrumentation were recently tested on a Rohde & Schwarz WiMAX test system to determine the quality of their reproduced signals. The AR Worldwide 50S1G4A (50W/0.8 to 4.2GHz) and the 10S4G11 (10W/ 4 to 0.6GHz) were measured at 3.7GHz and 5.8GHz and found to reproduce the signals with remarkable fidelity. The same performance is assured across the entire bandwidth of the amplifiers as it is with all ARWW’s “S” series amplifiers.

The tests showed that the amplifier’s output signal was almost indistinguishable from the signal generator’s output. The amplifier’s ability to provide more 1dB compression power and higher 3rd order intercepts allows the test engineer to get more useable power than competitive units. This means that testers don’t need to buy a 100W amplifier in order to get 50W of useable power.

TUV Rheinland Names Krishnan Vice President

Deep Krishnan

TUV Rheinland of North America, a world leader in compliance testing and certification, management system auditing and certification, field evaluation services, and consumer product services, has named Deep Krishnan vice president of operations at its Newtown, Connecticut headquarters. Krishnan previously served as TUV’s director of sales and marketing.

“Deep has become a trusted member of our family and has an intimate knowledge of our many products and services and is known by our staff in all of our offices throughout North America,”said Stephan Schmitt, president and CEO of TUV Rheinland of North America.

Krishnan holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering and an MBA. He has worked in the oil industry, owned a marketing and business consulting firm, and an import/export business.

Krishnan first served TUV Rheinland in 1996 as its national sales representative. Over the next few years, he traveled throughout North America, building up the sales force. In 2003 he was named director of sales and in 2004 director of sales and marketing.

Diodes Promotes Tang to Vice President

Diodes Inc., of Westlake Village, California, a manufacturer and supplier of high quality discrete and analog semiconductors, has promoted Francis Tang to vice president of product development. He previously served as global product manager.

“In his tenure at Diodes, Mr. Tang has made significant contributions toward the growth of our international product development initiatives,” said Dr. Keh-Shew Lu, president and chief executive officer of Diodes, Inc.

Prior to Diodes, Tang served as general manager of T2 Microelectronics in Shanghai, China, where he managed complex mixed-signal SOC product developments, and was senior strategic marketing director for Acer Labs Inc. USA in San Jose, California. He holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from University of Missouri – Rolla.

Laird Completes Reconstruction Project

Taking a lesson from Hurricane Katrina’s damage to New Orleans, Laird Technologies, a St. Louis, Missouri, designer and manufacturer of electromagnetic interference shielding, thermal management, telematics and wireless antenna solutions, has completed a $1 million levee reconstruction project at the company’s Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, site.

Laird replaced a portion of the dike system following a major flood resulting from a barrier wall failure in the previously existing levee.

“We designed, engineered and constructed the existing levee walls so we can safeguard our customers’s orders from possible future flooding,” said Sean Harrigan, vice president and general manager of Laird’s EMI Division. “We also are implementing a strict preventative maintenance program that includes frequent inspections and testing to ensure levee reliability,”

The Delaware Water Gap facility designs and manufactures EMI shielding products and various metal stampings used in the aerospace, defense, automotive and medical equipment industries.

Chomerics Appoints Sales Manager

Chomerics Europe has appointed Sam Robinson as territory sales manager for the U.K. and Ireland. The 34-year-old Robinson, with extensive experience in shielding and thermal management, is based at the company’s European headquarters in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. He holds a B.Eng. (Honors) in manufacturing systems engineering from the University of Coventry.

Most recently he was regional sales manager for Laird Technologies. Prior to that he spent time in similar roles with both Warth International and RFI Shielding.

Commenting on the appointment, Lionel Delorme, EU sales manager, Chomerics Europe, said, “With the combination of Sam’s skills and experience and Chomerics’ innovative and leading product range, we will be providing our customers with a great resource to help provide solutions to their shielding and thermal management applications.”

EMC Names Teuber Vice Chairman

EMC Corp. in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, has appointed Bill Teuber, the company’s longtime chief financial officer, to the newly created executive position of vice chairman. Teuber will continue to serve as CFO of EMC, a role he has held since 1997, and will continue to report to Joe Tucci, EMC’s chairman, president and CEO.

EMC also announced new responsibilities for executive vice presidents Howard Elias and Frank Hauck. Elias now will lead a newly formed EMC Global Services organization. while Hauck will lead Global Marketing and Customer Quality. Each will continue to report to Tucci.

Teuber joined EMC in 1995 as vice president and corporate controller, and became CFO in 1997.

EMC’s revenues have grown from $1.9 billion in 1995 to $9.66 billion in 2005. It now invests $1 billion a year in research and development.

European Partners to Join Nanotech Network

Clare Cromie O’Toole, vice president of the International Alliance of Nanotechnology Regions, (IANRegions), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and sustaining a global network of nanotechnology hubs, has signed a formal agreement with the alliance’s first European network partners, JEMI UK and JEMI France.

The primary focus of the IANRegions Network will be to support the growth of nanotechnology industries through the establishment of public and private sector best practices for workforce development, education, technology acceleration and regulatory frameworks. IANRegions Network Partners will work to grow industry small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through trade service support and referrals throughout the network.

There will also be a strong emphasis on creating business-to-business opportunities for network members.

Iain Hyslop, chairman of JEMI UK, based in Edinburgh, says, “Our U.K. member companies are developing world-class technologies but we need to accelerate the pace of growth in the nanoelectronics (semiconductor) and nanosystems (MEMS) industries by facilitating new trade and research partnerships between regional hubs.”

Avnet Tops U.S. Distribution Network

Schurter has presented its U.S. National Distributor of the Year Award for 2005 to Avnet IP and E. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, the company is one of Schurter’s key distributor partners, having shown double-digit growth in North American sales in the last four consecutive years.

“Avnet’s growth and success with the Schurter lines of fuses, circuit breakers, power entry modules and EMC filter products can be attributed to its focus on developing new markets and the presentation of key OEM accounts,” said Bob Barnes, sales manager east for Schurter.

Avnet IP and E carries the full line of Schurter products, including power entry modules, EMI/RFI filters, circuit breakers, fuses and fuseholders, in addition to a line of vandal-resistant switch products