Bookham to Diversify with Acquisition of New FocusSeptember 22, 2003...In one of the longest press
releases in the history of the compounds, Bookham Technology plc of Oxfordshire,
UK announced its intent to acquire New Focus Inc. of San Jose, California USA.
Sorting through the words, it appears the proposed acquisition is geared at
diversifying Bookham's offerings into non telecom businesses. Pricetag looks
to amount to .£117.6 million which is about $190.5 million in the USA. New
Focus is focused on various photonics and microwave application areas now,
including defense, research, industrial, biotech/medical and telecom test and
measurement. Key products at this stage include tunable lasers and microwave
RF amplifiers, employing approximately 200 people in San Jose, with a manufacturing
facility in Shenzhen, China. Along with many enumerated merits, if consummated,
the acquisition provides Bookham a SiValley presence plus additional cash revenues.
Giorgio Anania, President and CEO of Bookham, commented: “Consolidation in
our market is being driven by customers' demands for fewer, larger optical component
and subsystem suppliers that can deliver cost competitive pricing through economy
of scale. We believe the acquisition of New Focus will enable us to achieve
greater economies of scale, increasing manufacturing and cost efficiencies,
while reducing our market risk and giving us greater financial strength. Operationally,
we believe Bookham's and New Focus's strengths are complementary and should
enable the combined company to continue to reduce manufacturing costs and hence
further reduce our breakeven point. Bookham's leading-edge manufacturing capability
in our Paignton, Caswell, Zurich and Santa Rosa facilities will also be able
to supply key infeeds into New Focus's products. Together, we expect that the
combined manufacturing capabilities of the new company will represent a powerful
combination going forward." Following completion of the transaction,
the current stockholders of Bookham and New Focus will own approximately 73%
and 27% of Bookham, respectively. Nicola Pignati, currently Chairman, President
and CEO of New Focus, and Dr Peter Bordui, currently a New Focus board member,
will join the board of Bookham. The transaction is expected to close in December.
Joint
company news release.
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Mimix Raises $6.7 Million in Second Round FundingSeptember 22, 2003...At a time when it's not all that easy to raise capital, Mimix Broadband, Inc.
of Houston, Texas USA has scored a second round of institutional funding, led
by 3i and First Capital Group Investments. Total raised was $6.7 Million in
this Series B round. The additional investment will allow this promising fabless
supplier of leading edge wireless products to further develop their highly integrated
and high power MMIC devices. “The commitment received from our investors
for this round of funding confirms the confidence our shareholders have in Mimix
to achieve success as a long-term supplier of MMIC solutions,” said Arthur
Epley, Chairman of the Board, Mimix Broadband. “We are pleased with the progress
that Mimix is making, and feel fortunate to have these world-class investors
supplying deep resources and expertise and supporting our growth efforts.”
Marko Maschek, director at 3i and member of Mimix’s Board of Directors underscored
that, "We believe that Mimix’s innovative approach to integrating several
functions on a single chip enables the market to achieve significant cost reductions
and technological improvements." And Jeff Blanchard of First Capital
added, “As a returning co-lead investor, First Capital Group remains enthusiastic
about Mimix’s future and its ability to successfully execute its business plan."
Company news release. September 22, 2003...Crystal IS Inc. of Watervliet, New York USA has chalked up an impressive doubling
in diameter size of their heavily DoD backed native nitride substrate development.
Crystal IS focuses their particular efforts on one of the newer of the exceptionally
promising nitride substrate flavors, aluminum nitride (AlN). Crystal IS' breakthrough
is regarded as an important stride in increasing the size of single-crystal
low-defect native-nitride AlN substrates. AlN is considered to be an important,
low-defect alternative to semi-insulating silicon carbide and insulating quasi-bulk
GaN for use in manufacturing next-generation high power RF electronics, because
of the high thermal conductivity, low dislocation density, and close thermal
expansion match of AlN with GaN and AlGaN alloys. The Crystal IS development
has specifically come through a DARPA MTO-funded Wide Bandgap Semiconductor
Initiative aimed at dramatically improving substrates for next-generation RF
power electronics. The progressive increase in the size of low-defect native
AlN substrates brings the promise of its broad acceptance for a wide range of
next generation electronic and optoelectronic device solutions. Building on
previous demonstrations and recent commercialization of substrates made from
12 mm AlN single crystal boules, Crystal IS' research breakthrough is evidenced
by the demonstration of a 1.0 inch diameter boule... and here's the important
part... "without sacrificing crystal quality." The process breakthrough
builds upon their previous accomplishments based on patent-pending native single-crystal
AlN growth technology. “Participation in the DARPA MTO Wide Bandgap Semiconductor
Initiative has given us the critical push and focus to make this size achievement.
Although AlN crystal growth is challenging, demonstrations like this show we
are rapidly improving our understanding of what is required to increase substrate
diameter.” said Jon Whitlock, CTO. “It is also important to note that
based on the initial evidence, these larger substrates also have extremely low
dislocation densities of 1000 cm -2 or lower.” Keith Evans, Crystal IS COO
and VP of Business Development who, like the rest of the Crystal staff has had
a long and stellar career in leading edge compound semi development, also pointed
out that the company has recently announced the commercial availability of a-face,
c-face, and m-face substrates at 12 mm diameter. "The new results provide
additional confidence that we will be able to offer our customers 25 mm and
possibly larger substrates in 2004, for which additional production capacity
will be installed this Fall with plans to be operational in early in 2004,”
Crystal IS had early support from the DoD's Office of Naval Research (ONR),
the Air Force Research labs (AFRL) and Missile Defense Agency (MDA) in addition
to the DARPA funding. These highly synergetic DoD agencies well-know the underlying
strategic importance of providing multi-level capability in native nitride substrates.
“Early support from ONR and current strong support from AFRL, DARPA, and
MDA continue to be critical for advancing native AlN technology. We believe
low-defect native-nitride substrates will be a primary enabler of a wide range
of next-generation high performance device technologies for both military and
commercial applications. We are actively pursuing further technology advances
and business strategies to pass such advances on to our customers,” stated
Leo Schowalter, co-founder, President and CEO of Crystal IS. All can be reached
via Randy Gronewold at +1-518- 276-3325 and more information is on www.crystal-is.com. Anadigics Cuts the Ribbon on Taiwan Application CenterSeptember 22, 2003...Anadigics of Warren, New Jersey USA has officially opened a new application
center in Taipei, Taiwan to support growing customer demand for the company's
WLAN, CDMA, and GSM RF products. The new facility's staff of highly experienced
application engineers will provide local applications support to Anadigics'
OEM and ODM customer base by facilitating the customer RF design process and
shortening time to market for wireless and broadband end products. "The Taiwan
market represents enormous opportunity as industry trends continue to drive
the migration of handset and WLAN terminal design activity to Asia," said
Anadigics President/CEO, Bami Bastani. "This new application center
will provide greater depth of support to our existing customers as well as new
customers in the region by providing local RF expertise for new platforms that
rely on ANADIGICS leading RF products. Our Denmark design center, which
opened in 2002, has proven very effective in winning GSM reference designs and
the opening of this applications center in Taiwan furthers our strategy to address
the GSM wireless marketplace," he added. Anadigics opened its first facility
in Taiwan in Hsinchu in October 2002 to support manufacturing operations for
its large customer base in the Asian wireless and broadband markets. The new
application center is in Neihu, in the heart of Taipei's high technology sector.
The company has already been successful in staffing the Taiwan applications
center with high-caliber experts in GSM, CDMA, and WLAN. The new center is located
at 8 Fl, 285 Sec 2 Ti Ding Boulevard, Taipei 114, Taiwan. Company
news release. RFMD Unveils 802.11g WLAN Transceiver at Computex 2003 in TaiwanSeptember 22, 2003...RF Micro Devices, Inc. of Greensboro, North Carolina USA, has announced the
availability of the company's latest WLAN transceiver at the Computex show in
Taiwan. RFMD's new 802.11g transceiver solution is designed to prolong battery
life, offer superior range, small size and low bill of material (BOM) cost,
all of which the company deems critical elements of success in the current WLAN
marketplace. For those tracking this quickly evolving, standards-driven sector,
802.11g technology extends the data rate of the 802.11b standard from 11 Mbps
to 54 Mbps while maintaining backward compatibility with all 802.11b devices.
RF Micro Devices is a leading provider of transceivers for 802.11b, which is
currently the highest volume segment of the WLAN market. RFMD anticipates strong
interest in the 802.11g lane. Eric Creviston, RFMD's VP of Wireless Products
explained, "Our opportunity in the WLAN market continues to be driven by
the breadth and depth of our RF system design expertise, our growing WLAN product
portfolio, our specialization in low-cost manufacturing and our in-country engineering
support in Taiwan. Just as we experienced with our 802.11b solutions, we anticipate
quick traction with our new 802.11g offerings, due to our flexible, collaborative
business approach and the solution's advantages in cost, size, performance and
power consumption." RFMD's 802.11g solution is comprised of the RF2959 single-chip
transceiver and the RF5190 power amplifier and builds on the RFMD's basic GaAs
HBT PA process. The RF2959 transceiver is available in a 6x6mm 40-pin package,
features a standard interface compatible with multiple baseband/MACs (media
access controllers), and comes complete with reference design kits containing
software, design documents and assembly files to fully characterize the RF2959
and RF5190, and samples are already out to customers. Company
news release. RFMD's Polaris Total Radio Making Asian InroadsSeptember 22, 2003...RF Micro Devices of Greensboro, North Carolina USA has achieved what's called
"Full Type Approval (FTA)" for their Polaris Total Radio transceiver,
with a leading Taiwanese handset "Original Design Mfgr" (ODM) called
Chi Mei. This marks the first time FTA has been achieved in a handset using
RFMD's new Polaris product. FTA is the official certificate of conformance to
GSM/GPRS standards, and all GSM/GPRS handsets must pass FTA before being released
to the market. According to RFMD, FTA conformance is the most significant milestone
in the certification of GSM/GPRS handsets as it represents the final approval
before production shipments begin. Chi Mei expects to produce GSM/GPRS handsets,
modules and PC cards using the Polaris Total Radio transceiver for Original
Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Shipments of the new transceiver are expected
to begin in the December 2003 quarter with mass production volume to commence
in the March 2004 quarter. Bob Bruggeworth, President/CEO of RF Micro Devices,
said, "Our Polaris transceiver products represent a significant opportunity
for RF Micro Devices by diversifying our product portfolio and greatly increasing
our total addressable market in handsets. Given our leading market share in
power amplifiers for the GSM/GPRS market and our strong relationships with the
world's leading handset manufacturers, we fully intend to take significant market
share in the $1 billion market for cellular transceivers." Company
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