July - August 08
Laird opens manufacturing facility in India. See story below.
Laird Sets Up First Indian Manufacturing Facility
U.S.-headquartered Laird Technologies, a designer and manufacturer of customized wireless products and other electronics applications, is setting up its first offshore manufacturing facility in India. A unit of the U.K.-based Laird Group, Laird Technologies employs over 14,000 people across 40 facilities in 14 countries.
The 160,000 square-foot manufacturing facility, located in Nokia SEZ in Sriperambudur near Chennai, was inaugurated by G. K. Pillai, commerce secretary of the government of India.
The new $15 million Chennai plant will employ more than 1,200 people when fully operational. The company will initially produce antennas, battery packs, and EMI shielding products for cellular handset applications for its Indian customers. The company also expects to export the products manufactured at the Chennai facility to overseas markets.
Two Directors Elected to Spectrum Control Board
Spectrum Control, Inc., a leading designer and manufacturer of electronic control products and systems, has elected two new directors to its board ‚ Bernard C. Bailey and George J. Behringer.
Bailey's career spans over two decades of management experience in high technology and security industries. His educational background includes an undergraduate degree from the U.S. Naval Academy, a masters degree in engineering from the University of California - Berkeley, a masters degree in systems management from the University of Southern California and an MBA in finance from George Washington University.
Behringer has a B.S. in accounting from Gannon University. Throughout his career he was a practicing CPA, serving for ten years as the managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers' Nebraska practice
Gerald A. Ryan, chairman of the board, commented, "Mr. Bailey and Mr. Behringer each possess a broad range of business experience. With their finance and management expertise, they will undoubtedly be valuable additions to our existing board of directors."
EMS Technologies Awarded $13 Million Contract
EMS Technologies, Inc. has been awarded a $13 million contract from Northrop Grumman Corp. for the new extremely high frequency (EHF) satellite communications system for the U.S. Air Force's B-2 stealth bomber
Under a planned upgrade program, the new EHF system will allow the B-2 to send and receive battlefield information up to 100 times faster than its current ultra-high frequency satellite communications system.
"EMS is pleased to play a role in increasing the B-2's fighting effectiveness by equipping it with worldwide high-bandwidth data connectivity, and contributing to the Air Force vision of an interconnected force," said David Smith, vice president of EMS's defense and space systems.
Mark Rhoades, Northrop's EHF Satcom program director, added, "EMS Technologies has made great progress in reducing the risk on the EHF Satcom system program, a critical step for us moving to the next phase of defining the system's requirements for the Air Force."
Vishay Wins 2008 EE Times ACE Award
Vishay Intertechnology, Inc.'s SiP12510 and SiP12511 white LED drivers have won the 2008 EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Award in the category of Ultimate Products of the Year, Analog ICs. The awards recognize the industry's most innovative companies and breakthrough technologies.
The Vishay Siliconix SiP12510 and SiP12511 are 1.25MHz current-mode boost converters with a feedback reference voltage of 0.1V. Their typical efficiency of 90% is the highest ever achieved for this device type. For any battery-operated consumer product with a liquid crystal display, the SiP12510 and SiP12511 provide superior performance to enable image brightness and clarity.
The awards are judged by a panel of industry experts from academia, industry, and Wall Street executives.
Vishay, a Fortune 1,000 company, is one of the world's largest manufacturers of discrete semiconductors and passive electronic components.
New Orders Taken for Latest AR Modular RF
AR Modular RF has taken orders and begun shipments of the latest KMW1031 amplifier. The KMW1031 is the latest and improved version of its popular 20W man-pack tactical radio booster amplifier. This new fully automatic version is smaller, uses the latest state of the art amplification devices such that it can be powered from one UBI-2590 or similar battery, and can be used in both 12 and 24VDC vehicles.
Like its predecessor, the KMW1031 is completely submersible with fully automatic band switching, offering a minimum output of 20W across the entire bandwidth of 30-512MHz. It has automatic high speed switching of its internal filters to allow SINCGARS and other hopping modes across the full spectrum. Like both previous models it includes vehicle voltage suppression circuits, RF sensing, Tx/Rx switching, and has an automatic leveling control that handles inputs from 1 to 10W.
The KMW1031 is the latest in a line of battle-tested tactical radio amplifiers which have proven that they can stand up to the toughest military conditions.
Former Sandia Labs Director Dies
Morgan Sparks, a former director of Sandia National Labs, inventor of the first practical transistor and a longtime civic leader in Albuquerque, died May 3 at his daughter's home in Fullerton, California. He was 91.
Sparks (pictured on page 6) served as Sandia Labs director from 1972 until his retirement in 1981.
Prior to Sandia, Sparks had a 30-year career with Bell Labs in New Jersey and is best remembered as the person who fashioned the first practical transistor. Without transistors, one cannot begin to imagine personal computers, cell phones, DVD players and the many other electronic devices we rely on daily.
Labs Director Tom Hunter says, "Morgan was president when I was a young staff member at Sandia. He set the framework for Sandia to become a multi-program lab. He was widely recognized for his ability to engage the Labs in many new areas that proved to be important for our future."
Keithley Wins Magazine Product Competition
Keithley Instruments, Inc., a leader in solutions for emerging measurement needs, has won Portable Design Magazine's 2008 Editor's Choice Awards in the Test and Measurement category for its 4X4 MIMO RF test system.
Each year the editors of Portable Design recognize the innovative electronic components that are the groundwork for leading-edge portable electronic products. Keithley's 4X4 MIMO RF test system is used in R&D and production testing for making high-performance measurements on demanding signals for next-generation mobile communication devices, including the kind of systems envisioned for city-wide wireless access.
Keithley's RF test instruments are built on a next-generation instrument platform that uses state-of-the-art RF and high-speed DSP technology to reduce the cost of testing and shorten the time to market.
Agilent 13GHz Oscilloscope Approved By PCI-SIG
Agilent Technologies Inc. reports that its Infiniium 90000A Series 13GHz oscilloscopes have been approved by the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG ) for PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 electrical signal quality testing. Designers can now use the DSO/DSA91304A Infiniium oscilloscope to test and validate their designs, confident they will meet PCIe physical layer specifications.
"We are pleased to see Agilent's latest oscilloscope approved for use in our workshops for PCIe 2.0 electrical testing," said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG president and chairman.
The Agilent Infiniium 90000A Series oscilloscopes offer the world's deepest acquisition memory depth (up to 1G points). This ultradeep memory gives designers the ability to capture 25ms of time, at 40GSa/s, on all four channels simultaneously. This memory depth is 6X deeper than the memory in other oscilloscopes in the same class.
NATA Accredited Facility at RFI Industries
RFI Industries now has a NATA-accredited indoor open area test site (iOATS) located in Bayswater in Melbourne, Australia's outer eastern suburbs
EMC testing is performed with new Rohde & Schwarz EMI receiver systems and software by qualified and experienced engineers.
The EMI/EMC laboratory division offers a wide range of EMC testing capabilities to standards such as AS/NZS, EN, IEC, CISPR, FCC, DO160, ANSI, SAE, VDE, etc.
The laboratory can handle EMC testing for a wide variety of items ranging from small household appliances to large military vehicles.
The EMC laboratories undertake comprehensive electromagnetic ambient site surveys and interference investigations to cover all types of customer requirements.
Harris Corp. Looking at Strategic Options
Communications equipment maker Harris Corp. has started exploring strategic options, which may lead to its eventual sale, the Wall Street Journal said in May, citing people familiar with the matter.
However, the company is in the initial stages of the process and could very well decide against selling itself.
Companies including Raytheon Co., BAE and Northrop Grumman could show interest in Harris, the Journal added.
Harris, which serves the government and commercial markets in more than 150 countries, has annual revenues of over $5 billion and more than 16,000 employees.