BASINGSTOKE, UK – Volex acquired 51% majority stake in electronics design and manufacturing services firm inYantra Technologies for $13 million. The deal includes the $5 million purchase of 13.5 acres of industrial land.

FOUNTAIN INN, SC – Kyocera AVX is set to acquire Rohm Semiconductor’s tantalum and polymer capacitor business assets.

BEAVERTON, OR – Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, AMD, Arm, Google Cloud, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing formed a consortium to establish a die-to-die interconnect standard and foster an open chiplet ecosystem.

WASHINGTON – Global semiconductor industry sales were $50.7 billion in January, an increase of 26.8% year-over-year and down 0.2% sequentially, says the Semiconductor Industry Association.

BANNOCKBURN, IL – High material and labor costs are expected to continue for the foreseeable future, while recruiting and retaining skilled talent continues to be a challenge, according to new IPC data.

PATHUMTANI, THAILAND – SVI Austria, a subsidiary of SVI Public Co., signed a share purchase agreement to divest 49% of its shareholding in SVI Hungary to ml&s Personalservice and ESCHA.

DEHLI, INDIA -- An Indian regulatory agency has approved Elin Electronics Ltd. for an initial public offering.

BANNOCKBURN, IL — Total North American EMS shipments in January were down 6% year-over-year and 14.9% sequentially.

BANNOCKBURN, IL — The 2021 European EMS industry grew 9% year-over-year to more than €44 billion (US$48.9 billion), according to in4ma, an all-time high, beating the 2019 result by 1%. 

It wasn’t long ago NASA administrators were lamenting ongoing cuts to the world’s leading space agency’s annual budget were putting the US at risk of falling behind its competitors.

No one remembers, but in the 1960s the line item for NASA made up more than 4% of the federal US budget. Once a few footprints were made in space, however, the shine was off the moon rock. A decade later, NASA’s budget had been slashed by two-thirds in real dollars, and only briefly topped 1% of the federal budget again over the next 50 years.

Today it hovers around 0.5%, which still translates to more than $20 billion a year in funding. Indeed, the Biden administration proposed allocating nearly $25 billion to NASA in 2022 to support moon exploration and more.

As craft go up, costs come down. It can cost up to $400 million to lift some United Launch Alliance ships off the ground. That’s one reason why NASA is so interested in its so-called Venture Class of launch vehicles, smaller vessels that carry smaller payloads but lower risks, especially to the bottom line if they end up cone down. These rockets are priced at a few million dollars apiece, chump change, especially for those, ahem, explorers named Branson or Bezos.

SON, THE NETHERLANDS – Neways Electronics reported 2021 net revenue of €469.5 million (US$527.9 million), down 1.9% compared to 2020, largely due to the rationalization of less profitable customers. Growth with existing clients was dampened by continued material shortages and supply chain disruptions.

MOUNT PLEASANT, PA — Intervala today announced its acquisition of Manchester, NH-based electronics manufacturing services provider EPE Corp. for an undisclosed amount.