STOCKHOLM -- Note today announced the acquisition of all shares in Herrljunga, Sweden-based electronics manufacturer Dynamic Precision Solutions for SEK 20 million ($1.9 million), with adders based on profitability that could raise the total price to just over SEK 50 million ($4.8 million).

FONTENAY-AUX-ROSES, FRANCE – Icape Group’s IPO on the Euronext Growth market in Paris led to a capital increase of approximately €17 million (US$17.3 million) and a market capitalization of approximately €136.7 million.

WASHINGTON – Global semiconductor industry sales were $51.8 billion in May, up 18% year-over-year and 1.8% sequentially, says the Semiconductor Industry Association.

TAIPEI – Foxconn said June sales jumped 31% year-over-year to a record high for the month, and the firm is raising its full-year outlook thanks to strong sales of smartphones and servers, despite concerns of slowing demand due to rising inflation.

NEEDHAM, MA – Global shipments for virtual reality (VR) headsets jumped 242% during the first quarter compared to the same period last year, according to new data from IDC.

MEUNG-SUR-LOIRE, FRANCE -- All Circuits this week inaugurated its new electronics manufacturing factory here, where it intends to supplier electronic assemblies to the automotive sector.

MORRISVILLE, NC – iNEMI will hold a call-for-participation webinar for their unified equipment interaction management project July 7 and 8.

Foxconn was in the news (again) last month, this time for alleging competitors are poaching its employees.

The complaints were levied specifically at rivals in Vietnam, where the world’s largest ODM/EMS is expanding its factories as major customers like Apple shift production away from China, in part to avoid being a pawn in the geopolitical tug-of-war between the US and China.

Foxconn, which currently employs about 60,000 workers in Vietnam, asserts its EMS competitors are establishing their own operations near Foxconn’s to make it easier to entice workers to jump ship.

Poaching complaints are hardly new, of course. Mexico is notorious for workers relocating en masse from company to company in pursuit of everything from higher pay to better food in the plant cafeteria.

Audrey McGuckin, who spent 10 years as chief talent officer for Jabil and now consults to Kimball Electronics, among others, points out the top stress point for CEOs is talent. And a McKinsey study found only 5% of CEOs feel their organizations’ talent management has been very effective at improving company performance.

ATLANTA – After a run of two years of overall positive sales sentiment and expectation for electronic components, the June 2022 Electronic Component Sales Trend Survey dropped below the benchmark level of 100, indicating negative sales growth, according to ECIA.

QUEBEC – Ampère Proto shut down operations permanently here May 11 because of a lack of staff and components, according to reports.

ST. PETERSBURG, FL – Sixty-four percent of experts recently polled believe 5G will become mainstream in the next one to three years; 59% strongly agreed 5G transitions will create opportunities for new telecom companies; and 42% strongly believe a “killer app” will propel 5G’s true potential, according to results from Jabil’s 2022 global 5G survey.

CHAMPAIGN, IL – A team of researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, working with PragmatIC Semiconductor, developed the first commercially viable flexible plastic microprocessor chips, called FlexiCores, that can be manufactured at scale for less than a penny per unit.