Finance

Business confidence in the UK electronics industry is beginning to look healthy and widespread again after three years of a market downturn which has shut companies, taken thousands of manufacturing jobs and deeply scarred most of the survivors. An Electronics Weekly survey of senior executives and managers in 36 companies during May clearly showed that the vast majority were experiencing ...

Intelek has seen its full year results hit by the dollar exchange rate to the tune of £600,000. The satellite components firm said £6m of sales in the year to the end of March 2004 were in US$. Intelek would have seen headline earnings up 39 per cent if exchange rates had stayed the same as last year, said the ...

Engineering and manufacturing companies have seen strengthening business prospects in the second quarter of the year. A survey by the manufacturer’s organisation, the EEF found engineering output and orders growing in the second quarter at their fastest pace since the end of 1996, largely driven by increasing exports. Also for the first time in six years companies planned to increase ...

Seagate jobs in Northern Ireland are safe, said the firm, as it announced nearly 3,000 redundancies in plans to save $150m a year. The hard drive maker said the cuts represent around seven per cent of its global workforce, and include voluntary redundancy. “Reductions in force are occurring in various geographies on a targeted basis within Seagate’s various functional departments ...

Radstone Technology has moved into a new headquarters building on the Tove Valley Business Park in Towcester. The supplier of high-end embedded computer boards for defence and aerospace applications will concentrate its UK-based manufacturing and R&D activities in the £10.5m building, which occupies a six acre site in Northamptonshire. “Our success has made it possible for us to make this substantial ...

PCB manufacturer Circatex has been pulled out of administration by a management buy-out (MBO) which will enable it to make a fresh start unencumbered by the problems of the old business. The Tyneside-based company, originally created by an MBO of the Viasystems-owned site in December 2001, went into administration in March. The company continued to operate but staffing levels were ...

Philips Electronics has named René Penning de Vries as the next chief technology officer in its semiconductor division. In addition to his role as strategy officer of Philips Semiconductors, Penning de Vries’ new role is seen as preparation for the retirement next year of Theo Claasen who has overall responsibility for technology within Philips Semiconductors. Penning de Vries has worked ...

Having a standard product portfolio provides a regular income which supports the higher margin differentiated product business, according to STMicroelectronics. “It’s a cheque in the bank every month,” said Pasquale Pistorio, CEO of ST. “The product mix of two thirds differentiated, one third standard is fantastic. Differentiated provide the high margin, standard products drive the manufacturing machine.” Asked why competitors ...

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 ...