Finance

In the same week it bought Onetta, a US optical amplfier firm, Bookham Technology said it is closing its wafer fab in the UK. The gallium arsenide wafer fab at Caswell, Northamptonshire, will close, Bookham said. The firm will end production of monolithic microwave ICs. The firm would not issue a statement, but a notice on its website reads: “Bookham ...

International Rectifier (IR) will invest $40m to bring its 200mm wafer fab in Newport, Wales into production, creating 120 new jobs. In 2002 IR bought a 150mm and a 200mm fab from ESM (the former Newport Wafer Fab) for $81m. IR started to ramp the 150mm plant in March 2002. “Since the acquisition IR has invested over $66m to expand ...

Reflecting the robust growth across the semiconductor industry, the Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA) has announced that first quarter revenues for public fabless companies grew by 37 per cent year-over-year to $8.2bn. Communications companies led the pack. Qualcomm’s CDMA technologies division led sales for public fabless companies in Q1 with $711m. Broadcom was second with $573m. Graphics company Nvidia rounded out the top ...

The electronics industry in the UK and Ireland is enjoying a rise in confidence, according to two recent business surveys. An Electronics Weekly survey of 36 business managers in manufacturing and distribution found that confidence was at a high level with expectations of recruitment and investment over the next three months. Over 85 per cent of those questioned said business ...

Dr Wei Sun, Surrey Satellite Technology’s (SSTL’s) marketing and business development director, has won the 2004 BEXA-WiB – the annual Women In Business Achievement Award, supported by the British Exporters Association. The award, presented for “outstanding contribution to UK exports”, said BEXA, was presented by Sir Stephen Brown, chief executive of UK trade and investment at the Foreign and Commonwealth ...

Nanotechnology, on which the US government is spending $1bn a year in R&D programmes, could see up to half a dozen initial public offerings this year as the venture capitalists sense an exit strategy in an area some analysts consider to be over-invested. First into the frame is expected to be Nanosys which claims to have computer modelling techniques which ...

The semiconductor production equipment book-to-bill ratio moved up to 1.14:1 in April from the 1.09:1 ratio in March, according to SEMI International, the trade body representing the manufacturers of equipment used to make chips. SEMI said that orders rose 16 per cent in April to $1.59bn compared to the $1.28bn of March, while April shipments rose to $1.4bn compared to ...

Firm confident of growing licensing revenues as it reports a 60 per cent increase in sales

Harting has expanded production at its backplane manufacturing facility following an increase in business in the last six months. The German connector company added a design capability to the Northampton-based backplane assembly operation last September. Since then there has been an increase in business with mainly UK-based customers. “We are really flying, the year has gone well,” Steve Richardson, sales ...

Intel said today it plans to invest another $2bn to add 65nm process capability to its current Irish fab, as well as construct a new 300mm fab on its campus there. Under an agreement with the Irish Development Authority (IDA), Intel said it intends to add an additional 5,500m² of manufacturing cleanroom space plus the necessary manufacturing equipment to enable ...