TORONTO -- Celestica Inc., a top tier electronics manufacturing services provider, today announced that it has acquired Ramnish Electronics, an EMS provider located in Hyderabad, India. Celestica will relocate and expand the company's operations in Hyderabad area later this year.

Terms were not disclosed.

VANCOUVER -- Nam Tai Electronics reported second-quarter net income of $6 million on sales of $185 million, a company record for quarterly sales.

For the June quarter, the EMS provider's sales were up 25.5% year-over-year, while net income fell 92.8%. In Q2 2004, the company received a one-time gain of $71 million from the IPO of one of its subsidiaries. Gross profit was up 7% to $23.8 million.

BEIJING -- A merger of several of state-owned electronics firms will create the nation's largest electronics concern, various news outlets reported today.

China Electronics Corp. and China Great Wall Computer Group are among more than a half-dozen firms that will merge into the new comglomerate. The group received government approval earlier this week.

TORONTO – In its second acquisition in as many days, Celestica has bought CoreSim, a provider of design analysis and redesign services. The move will strengthen Celestica’s design services by adding intellectual property in the form of unique engineering tools and processes.

Rochester, NY– EMA Design Automation and AEi Systems have released the Power IC Model Library. The PSpice library incorporates over 150 time-domain simulation models for power electronic designs and gives designers the ability to plug in a model, representative of the actual IC, and simulate the switching performance under actual operating conditions.

“Many EDA vendors only have access to information in the data sheets, which is not sufficient when modeling a controller or regulator,” said Charles Hymowitz, managing director of AEi. “The data sheets simply do not have the level of detail required, and companies who rely solely on data sheet input produce substandard and inaccurate models.”

The models in this library enable designers to perform high-speed, cycle-by-cycle simulations to show true large-signal performance, simulate current-mode control using accurate modeling techniques, run CCM and DCM converter simulations, generate line and load step responses, and measure power stage loss and stress analysis for all major components.

The models are compared and verified with bench data under startup, steady state, line, and load transient conditions. Nonlinear characteristics such as propagation delay, switching speed, drive capability, maximum duty cycle/current limits and startup phenomena are all accurately modeled. Designers can directly compare the performance of components from various vendors and analyze the effects of different implementations such as peak current mode control, hysteric current control, low voltage and low operating current.

A list of components is available at ema-eda.com.

NORWALK, OH -- In July, EPIC Technologies completed the certification process for ISO 13485:2003 in its Norwalk and two Juarez, Mexico, facilities. It has also completed surveillance audits and recertified these facilities to the ISO/TS 16949:2002 standard.

ISO 13485:2003 is a quality management standard for medical device manufacturers. ISO/TS 16949:2002 was developed to support the automotive industry.

"While ISO 13485:2003 and ISO/TS 16949 are valued by medical and automotive customers because they address industry-specific quality issues, we also recognize that each of these standards drives further development of best practices in the areas of performance measurement and standardization. ISO/TS 16949 drives additional focus in the area of customer satisfaction measurement and integration of those results into focused continuous improvement efforts. The practices we adopted in support of these certifications continue to strengthen our internal systems company wide," said Jochen Lipp, VP operations and COO, EPIC Technologies.

HERNDON, VA —The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI.org) will host an Innovation Leadership Forum intended to stimulate innovation and manufacturing research for the electronics industry.

Held in Herndon on Sept. 15-16, the objective is help focus limited R&D resources to ensure development of the innovative technologies required to maintain the growth of the electronics industry over the next decade.

“The rapid globalization of high-tech innovation and manufacturing has caused several notable industry leaders to express serious concerns about the future competitiveness of our industrial infrastructure,” said Bob Pfahl, vice president of iNEMI.

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.