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ARLINGTON, VA – The Consumer Electronics Association now projects fourth quarter wholesale shipment revenues will increase by 0.1% year-over-year. The original forecast issued in October anticipated 3.5% fourth-quarter growth over 2007.

ANGLETON, TX – Contract manufacturer Benchmark Electronics Inc. said, through an alliance with Silicon Graphics Inc., it helped create the computer system for which NASA achieved the ranking of third fastest supercomputer in the world.

Benchmark worked with Silicon Graphics to manufacture Pleiades, which SGI deployed at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA. The supercomputer is expected to support the development of the space agency's next-generation space fleet, along with projects related to all other NASA mission directorates.

NASA's Pleiades system is a 51,200-core SGI Altix ICE 8200EX system, and is said to be capable of generating a theoretical peak of 609 trillion operations per sec.

Benchmark contributed product introduction services, PCB assembly, system integration and functional test to the program.

MACAO – Deswell Industries Inc. reported fiscal second-quarter nets sales of $32 million, down 16.1% year-over-year, mainly because of the continuing decline in business from the company's electronic and metallic segment.

The firm reported an operating loss of $1.7 million for the quarter, compared to operating income of $1.7 million for the same quarter of 2007.

Gross profit in the electronic and metallic segment was 11.1% of net sales, compared to 11.6% of net sales for the year-ago quarter.

Net sales for the six months ended Sept. 30 were $67.3 million, down 12.5% year-over-year.

Net income decreased $5.2 million to a loss of $382,000, compared to $4.9 million last year.

Deswell manufactures injection-molded plastic parts, components, electronic products, subassemblies and metallic products for OEMs and contract manufacturers.