MALVERN, PA --  Passive components maker Vishay Intertechnology reported second-quarter sales fell 10.1% and net earnings were off 76% year-on-year, as restructuring costs took their toll. 

For the July quarter, Vishay reported sales of $582 million and net earnings of $9.72 million. Sequentially, revenue was up 5.1% and net earnings rose 70%.

NEW YORK -- Dover Corp., parent company of such leading electronics equipment makers as Universal Instruments, DEK, Vitronics and OK International, reported second-quarter sales increased 16% or $218.8 million over 2004. The Electronics group grew 25% during the period, to $141.5 million.

ATLANTA - Visiprise Inc. closed on a $16 million round of funding led by Investor Growth Capital (IGC). This oversubscribed, second round of funding also included RRE Ventures, Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, Canaan Ventures and Wheatley Partners, bringing total company funding to $18.3 million. IGC’s Noah Walley and Phil Dur will join Visiprise’s board of directors.

“This round of funding will enable Visiprise to quickly capitalize on our development and delivery of a true global manufacturing platform that offers companies as much as a tenfold return on their manufacturing IT investments,” said Sean McCloskey, president and CEO. “We see our ability to attract blue-chip investors in this round of funding as a strong endorsement of the company we have built over the past few years.”

In a statement, McCloskey said the new funding will be used to fuel expansion in Asia. It will also increase its investment in collaborative work to accelerate its partnership with SAP AG (the two companies offer a turnkey business software solution based upon SAP NetWeaver to the discrete manufacturing markets). In addition, McCloskey said the funding would be used to make future acquisitions.

“Visiprise has grown its enterprise accounts by 500% and completed 31 new deployments – six of which were  multi-site, global installations,” said Noah Walley,  managing director of IGC. “Today Visiprise has a list  of clients that reads like a who’s who in discrete  manufacturing and its product and product vision is one that we feel will be as important to manufacturers in the next three years as ERP was in the late ‘90s.”

New York -- Dr. Jennie Hwang will share her 15-year lead-free development knowledge and real-world production know-how in a series of lead-free courses in the New York area next week.

Attendees to each half-day course will receive a workbook and Dr. Hwang’s three current textbooks, including: Environment-Friendly Electronics and Implementing Lead-free Electronics.
 
Register for any or all courses at: blackfox.com/leadfree/LeadfreeRegistration.pdf.

August 8, AM: Part 1 & 2, Lead-Free Preparation for Implementation
August 8, PM: Part 3, Lead-Free Implementation & Production
August 9, AM: Part 4, Lead-Free Reliability & Manufacturing
August 9, PM: Part 5, Lead-Free System Compatibility--Materials and Processes
August 10, AM: Part 6, Lead-Free & the Role of Bi
 
For more info and individual course details, visit:
blackfox.com/leadfree/LeadFreeWorkshop.pdf

Dr. Hwang holds a number of patents and is the author of over 250 publications. She has served as National president of the SMTA and on the board of ASM International. Dr. Hwang is a member of the U.S. Commerce Department Export Council and the newly formed National Research Council Globalization Committee. She is currently a partner of H-Technologies Group Inc. and an adjunct professor at the Engineering School of Case Western Reserve University.

YAVNE, Israel - Valor Computerized Systems showed continued growth for the ninth quarter in a row, and released financial results for the six-month period ending June 30.

Revenues were $9 million in the second quarter of 2005, an increase of more than 20% over Q2 2004 revenues of $7.45 million. Revenues increased year-on-year, growing from $14.6 million in the first half of 2004 to $17.7 million in the first half of 2005.

Net profit in the second quarter was $408,000, an increase of 133% over the adjusted profit for the same quarter last year. Net profit for the first half of the year was more than $1 million – up 200% from the same period last year.

CAMBRIDGE, U.K. -- Organic electronics -- thin film transistors and displays for electronic products in which the key component is organic -- are forecast to hit $30 billion by 2015, driven by logic and memory, displays and lighting.

The author of the study, research firm IDTechEx, says organic electronics will not affect sales of silicon chips, however.

SAN FRANCISCO -- CIOs in July predicted IT budgets will grow this year, up from 6% in June. 

Spending projections were up in all categories month over month, except telecom equipment.

BANNOCKBURN, IL – The 90-day moving average shipments of all types of circuit boards rose 3.3% year-on-year in June, and bookings jumped 37.4%, according to the latest poll of North American PCB fabricators.

FRAMINGHAM, MA – The worldwide mobile phone market showed signs of recovery from the first quarter of 2005 due to impressive shipments of entry-level mobile phones to both developing and mature markets.

According to research firm IDC, worldwide mobile phone shipments totaled 188.7 million units in the second quarter, increasing 7.3% sequentially and 16.3% from the same quarter one year ago.

CHICAGO – A pair of Chicago high school students are the latest scholarships winners from a fund endowed by Circuits Assembly and Technology Forecasters.

Salvador Montoya and Israel Rodriguez, both students at Curie Metropolitan High School, received $500 each in scholarship funds from an IPC fund that supports secondary electronics programs.

The Scholarship Fund also donated $1,000 to the school for additional educational materials and equipment for Curie’s electronics program.

Criteria for the award included a 3.0 GPA in electronics, a 90% attendance record and a history of achievement in electronics at the school. The students also submitted written essays that described their plans for higher education and career goals.

In 2003, Circuits Assembly magazine and Technology Forecasters financed the $10,000 fund through a portion of entry fees from the Service Excellence Awards program. Each year, IPC donates up to $2,500 to the school.

Kim Sterling, IPC vice president of marketing and communications, said in a statement that Curie was chosen as the sole beneficiary “because of the school’s three-year industrial electronics course that gives students work-oriented, hands-on experience using the latest advancements in business and technology.”

SAN JOSE -- The Semiconductor Industry Association today applauded passage of the U.S.-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA, by the U.S. House of Representatives.

“DR-CAFTA is an important agreement for the U.S. semiconductor industry,” said SIA president George Scalise. “Elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade is very important in helping U.S. companies gain access to these rapidly emerging markets."

Boston, MA –The NITON X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) analyzers from Thermo Electron Corp. (thermo.com) were awarded a Gold IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Award) for Medical & Scientific Products. The award-winning portable analyzer line was designed by Altitude Inc., a Massachusetts-based strategic product development firm.

The analyzers are used for a variety of nondestructive testing applications, including RoHS and WEEE compliance, metal alloy sorting, positive material inspection, mineral exploration and mining, precious metals analysis, environmental risk assessment and lead paint testing. According to the company, the small size, light weight, ruggedness, ease of use and good ergonomics are critical for the demanding field applications of XRF, where instruments must work in a range of environmental conditions and take upwards of one thousand readings per day.

Altitude's designers worked with Thermo engineers and scientists to develop XRF analyzers that maximize productivity. The XLi, XLp and XLt series XRF analyzers determine approximate sample chemistries and identify many types of samples in as little as one second. All are water resistant, dust proof and built to meet the demands of rigorous testing conditions.