WASHINGTON – Counterfeit electronics, and the semiconductors they are built with, pose a growing threat to the health and safety of military and civilians alike, the president of the Semiconductor Industry Association testified before a US Senate committee.

“The catastrophic failure risk inherently found in counterfeit semiconductors places our citizens and military personnel in unreasonable peril. A counterfeit semiconductor is a ticking time bomb,” Brian Toohey told the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is investigating counterfeit electronic parts in the Department of Defense supply chain. “Counterfeiters violate American companies’ intellectual property rights and cost American’s jobs. We estimate that counterfeiting costs US-based semiconductor companies more than $7.5 billion each year.”

The SIA recommended five actions to the Committee to stem the tide of counterfeit electronics in the DoD supply chain: continue partnerships between industry, the DoD and Department of Justice to develop a more effective authentication system; strengthen procurement procedures at DoD for mission-critical components, including purchasing exclusively from authorized distributors; ensure industry’s ability to fully partner with Customs and Border Patrol Officials to stop suspected counterfeits at the border by ending CBP's redaction policy; aggressively prosecute counterfeit traffickers, and more strongly enforce IP rights internationally.

ANGLETON, TX – Benchmark Electronics said its CEO and cofounder Cary Fu will retire, effective Dec. 31.

Benchmark's current president, Gayla Delly, will replace Fu and become a member of the board effective immediately.

Delly has been president since 2008.

LOUISVILLE, KY – Sypris Solutions reported third quarter revenue of $91.2 million, up 24% year-over-year, driven by a 38% increase in sales for the Industrial Group.
Net income was $6.1 million, compared to a net loss of $1.9 million for the prior year period.

For the nine months ended Oct. 2, the company reported revenue of $252 million, up 26.4% year-over-year. Net income was $6.6 million, compared to a net loss of $8.6 million in 2010.

 “Revenue for our Electronics Group increased 15% sequentially for the quarter, while gross profit increased 223% sequentially,” said Jeffrey T. Gill, president and CEO.

Revenue for the Electronics Group was $18.5 million in the third quarter, down 10.7% year-over-year, while gross profit for the quarter was $3.3 million, or 18% of revenue, down 33% compared to the same period in 2010.

Revenue for the period continued to reflect the impact of the delay in funding for orders as a result of the late enactment of 2011 federal budget, while gross profit was impacted by unfavorable mix and additional engineering costs for product portfolio improvements, the firm says.

For the Electronics Group, Sypris expects to see continued recovery of the defense market once the 2012 budget authorization is enacted.

LOS ANGELES -- Ducommun Inc. today reported third-quarter profits of $1 million, down from $5.8 million last year, in part due to costs stemming from its $340 million acquisition of electronics manufacturing services firm LaBarge.

BANGKOK -- Fabrinet today announced its Pinehurst campus has restarted limited production following three weeks of shutdown due to rampant flooding.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Fabrinet today reported September quarter net income rose $500,000 over last year to $15.7 million, surprising industry watchers who thought the rampant flooding of two of its Thailand plants would have sunk profits.

ST. PETERSBURG, FL – Jabil’s Defense and Aerospace Services and Rockwell Collins’ technical support are teaming to support in-country manufacturing and support for KC-390 aircraft.  

The firms will produce various systems and subsystems in Jabil’s production facilities in Brazil.

No financial terms were disclosed.

WATERTOWN, SD – Contract manufacturer OEM Worldwide said it has changed its name to Onyx EMS.

Onyx provides manufacturing of medical equipment, industrial equipment and controls, and network and telephone systems. The company anticipates further expansion in military, aerospace and smart grid markets.

Onyx is also completing an $11 million expansion and improvement project to their manufacturing and engineering facilities over the next four years. The company broke ground on a 50,000 sq. ft. expansion to their headquarters in September. The expansion will double the company’s system-build and warehousing capacity.

The firm also plans to upgrade and replace automated printed circuit board assembly equipment to increase current manufacturing capacity and prepare the company for expansion.

Last February, the company opened a Twin Cities technical sales office in Minneapolis. Onyx expects to add up to an additional 140 technically skilled jobs to its board assembly, test and high-level assembly operations.

CHANDLER, AZ – Amkor Technology said it would convert all of its 19mm through 31mm body size plastic ball grid array packages to pin-gate molding over the next few years.

FRAMINGHAM, MA – Third-quarter worldwide PC microprocessor revenues went up 12.2% sequentially and 16.1% year-over-year, to $10.7 billion, says IDC.

On a shipment basis, the PC microprocessor market rose 6.7% compared to the second quarter and increased 5.2% compared to the third quarter of 2010.

“The average selling price that brand vendors pay for PC microprocessors rose more than 5% in the third quarter of 2011,” said Shane Rau, director of semiconductors: personal computing research at IDC. “And it was the eighth quarter in a row that ASPs rose. Clearly, Intel's Sandy Bridge and AMD's Fusion microprocessors with integrated graphic processors are rising in each company's product stack and driving the price increase. At the same time, low-end processors, notably Intel's Atom processors, are declining as a percentage of the unit mix.”

Processors with IGP rose to 73% of total PC processor shipment volume in the third quarter, the firm notes.

For the quarter, Intel earned 80.2% overall worldwide shipment market share, a gain of 0.9 percentage point sequentially. Meanwhile, AMD earned 19.7%, a loss of 0.7 percentage point compared to the second quarter. VIA Technologies earned 0.1%, a loss of 0.2 percentage point.

Intel earned 82.3% share in the mobile PC processor segment, a loss of 2.1 percentage points. AMD finished with 17.6%, a gain of 2.4%, and VIA earned 0.1%.
In the PC server/workstation processor segment, Intel finished with 95.1% market share, a gain of 0.6 percentage point, and AMD earned 4.9%, a loss of 0.6 percentage point.

In the desktop PC processor segment, Intel earned 75.8%, a gain of 4.8 percentage points, and AMD earned 24.1%, a loss of 4.8 percentage points.

ANAHEIM, CA -- Multi-Fineline Electronix reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income fell 61% to $2.4 million on $2 million in restructuring costs and slower sales.

KEMPELE, FINLAND – PKC Group, a provider of contract assembly and wire harnesses, reported third-quarter profits rose 17.6 million euros, up 22% year-over-year.

Consolidated net sales in the September quarter grew 37.5% year-over-year to 308.2 million euros.

Net sales generated by the electronics business decreased 13.7% to 17.7 million euros. The segment generated an operating profit of 1.7 million euros, down 48.5% year-over-year, equivalent to 9.8% of the segment’s net sales.

“The fall in demand for the design and manufacturing services of PKC’s electronics business during the first nine months of the year resulted in a weakening of the whole segment’s turnover and profit in comparison with the previous year. However, profitability clearly improved during the third quarter from the level at the start of the year,” said Harri Suutari, president and CEO.

PKC said demand from the industrial sector rose in the first half but started to fall during the third quarter in both Europe and China. The weakening was a result of economic uncertainty in Europe and a reduction in wind power investments in China. New regulations introduced in China concerning wind power have temporarily reduced investments, the company said. Also, PKC’s electronics business was hurt by a change in product strategy by a telecommunications customer.

PKC also announced it has closed its acquisition of the AEES companies.

Euro 1 = US$1.3848