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BETHLEHEM, PA – Former DEK executive Neil MacRaild has been named president of Ovation Products.

ATLANTA – UP Media Group next month will present a free webinar on optimizing system performance with FPGA/PCB co-design.

The webinar takes place June 3 at 2 pm Eastern.

Bob Potock, director of FPGA marketing for Mentor Graphics’ Systems Design Division, is the presenter.

The third in a series, this event will discuss elements of an effective FPGA on-board strategy, specific implementation options, and how to boost productivity and PCB quality. The webinar will address effective integration of multiple FPGAs on a PCB. It will focus on new FPGA/PCB concurrent design processes and tools said to significantly improve system performance, product costs and productivity.

UPMG is the parent company of Circuits Assembly and Printed Circuit Design & Fab.

To register, click here: FPGA Webinar.

LOS ANGELES – Nepcon East will take place in May 2009, one month later than this year's show, the event producers said today.

In announcing the new dates, Canon Communications said the shift came at the request of leading exhibitors that felt the show timing was too close to other industry events.

The show, one of the longest running electronics manufacturing events in the world, will take place at the Boston Convention Center.

"I'm pleased that Canon was able to move Nepcon East to the late May time frame,” said Brian Duffey, president of Mydata Automation, one of the show’s largest exhibitors. “Nepcon East is a good show for us and the new timing will make participation possible for Mydata in 2009. It's great to see that Canon heard the industry concerns and moved proactively to make this happen."

Nepcon East will co-locate with Design & Manufacturing New England and Assembly New England, giving it an estimated 375 exhibitors.

TAIPEI -- Hon Hai will enter the notebook contract manufacturing market next year, the Commercial Times reported.

Hon Hai, the world's largest ODM and the parent of Foxconn, primarily makes connectors, desktops, MP3 players, game consoles and cellphones.

SIOUX FALLS, SD – Raven Industries today announced first-quarter sales of $75.2 million, up 29% year-over-year. Most of the increase was a result of strong sales from the Flow Controls division, the firm said.

SCHAUMBURG, IL – Rich Nottenburg, Motorola's chief strategy and technology officer, resigned from the beleaguered cellphone company, to “return to the New York area to be with his family and pursue other opportunities.” He had been chief strategy officer since 2004 and had run the company’s R&D programs since December.

The company promoted Dan Moloney, head of its home networks mobility business, to also oversee Motorola Labs, the company’s research group.

There is speculation that Nottenburg is the latest casualty of Carl Icahn, Motorola's largest private investor, who has been pushing for several changes within the company.

SAN JOSE – The Semiconductor Industry Association issued a statement thanking the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee for approving funding increases for science and engineering research in the supplemental appropriations bill before Congress this week.

“Science and engineering research is the backbone of American innovation, and we thank leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee for underscoring this message by appropriating increases in research funding,” said SIA president George Scalise. “Funding for basic research is one of the three components of the U.S. innovation agenda and is critical to ensuring America’s continued innovation and technological leadership in the global economy.”

The fiscal 2008 consolidated appropriations bill reported out of the Senate Appropriations Committee last Thursday includes $300 million for basic research in the physical sciences and engineering, one important component of the U.S. innovation agenda. The bill appropriates $200 million for science and engineering research and math and science education, at the National Science Foundation, and $100 million for science and engineering research at the Office of Science in the Department of Energy.

“We are encouraged by this important step toward boosting U.S. competitiveness and urge both chambers of Congress to include these critical research appropriations in the final bill. In addition, we urge the Administration and the Congress to take meaningful action on remaining components of the Innovation Agenda, including reforming the immigration system for highly educated workers and extending an enhanced R&D tax credit,” said SIA chairman Willem Roelandts.

“Other nations have already adopted the components of an innovation agenda that our nation continues to talk about. Congress and the Administration now have an opportunity to fulfill a bipartisan commitment they made to American innovators,” Scalise said.

SINGAPORE – EMS provider Flextronics announced Thomas J. Smach is resigning as chief financial officer to pursue other interests outside the company, effective June 30.

Paul Read, who most recently served as executive vice president of finance for worldwide operations at the firm, will be CFO upon Smach's departure.

TORONTO – For the first quarter 2008, Adeptron Technologies Corp. reported a loss of $616,000, compared to net income of $163,000 for the same period last year.

HIALEAH, FL – Contract manufacturer Simclar Inc. reported first-quarter pre-tax income was $59,101, down almost 94% compared to the first quarter 2007.

While this was partly a result of the decrease in sales, the most significant factor was the inclusion in the 2008 results of costs of approximately $797,000 in relation to the closure of Simclar’s North Carolina facility, the firm said.

First-quarter net income was $40,485, down nearly 94% year-over-year as well.

Revenue was $29.9 million, down 4.7% year-over-year. The decrease was a result of the postponement of the introduction of a key customer's new programs until later in the year.

"With the closure now complete and the transferred business now fully integrated into our Mexican facility, we look forward to the future benefits of improved profitability and cash flow. Although it is evident that the economic slowdown has affected some of our key customers, our backlog at the end of the quarter was $28 million, an increase of 6% since the end of 2007, and our forecasts indicate a stronger second quarter," said chairman Sam Russell.

CORK, IRELAND – An electronics firm that has been operating in Cork for 30 years has collapsed, terminating 130 employees this week.

A receiver was appointed to Hormann Electronics last week as a result of financial issues.

Until the end of this month, 20 people will stay on payroll, the company said.

EL SEGUNDO, CA – Riding the momentum of continued strong demand growth for mobile handsets, sales of semiconductors for wireless products rose at a faster pace than the overall chip market in 2007, according to iSuppli Corp.

The global wireless semiconductor market generated $29.5 billion in revenue in 2007, up 7.6% from 2006. These figures consist of revenue from sales of application-specific semiconductors – excluding memory – for wireless applications, including mobile handsets, wireless infrastructure equipment, wireless LANs and connectivity products.

In contrast, the global market for all kinds of semiconductors grew by only 3.3% during the same period, the research firm said.

Worldwide mobile handset shipments amounted to 1.15 billion units in 2007, rising by a robust 16.1% year-over-year. This helped keep the wireless semiconductor market on a high growth track, with six of the Top-10 suppliers achieving double-digit increases in revenue for the year.

“iSuppli in mid 2007 reported that Qualcomm Inc. had usurped Texas Instruments Inc. as the world’s leading supplier of semiconductors for wireless applications during the initial three months of 2007, the first time this had occurred on a quarterly basis,” said Francis Sideco, senior analyst, wireless communications for iSuppli. “Qualcomm held onto the lead for the entire year of 2007.”

Qualcomm handily outgrew the overall wireless semiconductor market, with its revenue in this segment rising 24.1%. The company shrugged off its legal woes and benefited from strong demand for its EvDO and WCDMA/HSPA chips. Company market share rose to 19.1%, up from 16.5% in 2006.

Texas Instruments’ performance in 2007 was not as strong, with the company’s share declined to 16.7%, down from 19.4% in the prior year. Company revenue declined by 7.7%.

“Texas Instruments’ results were influenced by a confluence of events in 2007 –especially occurrences in the market for high-end 3G semiconductors,” Sideco said. “The year 2007 brought a market slowdown in Western Europe, where Texas Instruments’ customers have a large presence. This, combined with Ericsson Mobile Platform’s rising use of STMicroelectronics parts in some of its 3G digital baseband platforms, conspired to diminish Texas Instruments’ market share in 2007,” Sideco said.

STMicroelectronics surged to the No.-3 ranking, up from fifth in 2006, because of a 14.4% rise in revenue. The company’s strong performance was a result in part of the previously mentioned usage of its 3G digital baseband chips by EMP.

Infineon posted an impressive 54.3% increase in revenue, allowing it to move to No. 4, up from No. 8 in the prior year, said iSuppli.

iSuppli’s 2007 rankings illustrate the consolidation of market demand among the top semiconductor suppliers. The wireless semiconductor market is structuring itself to match the concentration of market share among the Top-5 mobile handset OEMs.

“Scale is sine qua non to compete in today’s wireless semiconductor market,” Sideco said. “Chip suppliers need at least $1 billion in revenue to even sit at the wireless table. However, scale goes beyond revenue and extends into having sufficient resources to support a broad and cutting-edge product portfolio, which must include single chip and reference platform solutions.”

Wireless semiconductor suppliers with annual revenue greater than $1 billion increased their collective share of the market to 62% in 2007, up from 51% in 2006. Sideco projects this trend will continue in 2008.