SAN JOSE -- Flextronics, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, last night reported first-quarter net sales of $3.9 billion, up $17 million over last year.

For the quarter ended June 30, Flextronics' pro-forma net income rose 27% to $99.6 million. GAAP net income slid $15.6 million to $58.7 million year-over-year.

SAN JOSE -- Revenues of EMS provider Sanmina-SCI fell 8% to $2.83 billion and the company was hit with a quarterly loss of $202,000 due to restructuring charges taken in its fiscal third quarter. 

Sanmina-SCI recorded a profit of $11.4 million last year. For the June quarter, the pro-forma profit was $24.4 million, down from $34.4 million a year ago.

MYRTLE BEACH, SC -- AVX Corp. reported net sales of $319.8 million for its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, down 7% year-on-year but up 4.5% sequentially. Net income was $10.2 million, down 55% year-on-year. 

John Gilbertson, president and chief executive, said, "The sales increases in the last two quarters indicate that end market growth is continuing, and this is a positive sign for AVX and the industry."

Sequentially, profit from operations improved to $10.1 million. Profit from operations was $30.7 million last year.

Cash and short and long-term investments in securities increased $5.4 million to $725.9 million during the quarter.

Redmond, WA -- Datalight and Data I/O Corp. announced a joint technology effort aimed to ease the task of bringing NAND Flash products to market.

As market demand for increased memory in electronic products has surged, designers of new products increasingly use NAND Flash memories in new designs to capture a cost advantage. The challenge is that NAND memories require bad-blocks to be detected and managed while writing to the device.  The joint effort hopes to enable NAND flash users to leverage performance capabilities, shortening the development cycle and ensuring accurate handling of bad blocks.

Datalight specializes in system software to help OEMs add value to embedded devices. Data I/O is a provider of manual and automated device programming systems for programmable flash technologies.

Mansfield, TX – Mouser Electronics will be the first catalog distributor to market Oki Semiconductor’s advanced integrated circuits to the industry.

Oki manufactures a line of ICs for the telecommunications, automotive, computer, medical and consumer markets. Its portfolio of products includes microcontroller, ASIC, memory, speech synthesis and RF devices.   

Mouser’s customer base of over 100,000 business accounts focuses primarily on the design-in and prototyping stage of the design cycle and are comprised of a range of companies, universities and engineering consultants who recommend, specify and purchase board level components for product designs. 

GREENVILLE, SC -- Kemet Corp. today June quarter net income of $3 million on net sales of $114.1 million. The company's net loss before special items was $300,000, with the difference made up by a one-time tax benefit of $3.3 million. 

Sales at the maker of passive chips were down 6.8% from last year and up 12.5% sequentially.

BOSTON --  Revenues of Europe-based electronics manufacturing services firms are in recovery, according to a recent research report.

Reed Electronics Research says the European EMS market will reach €47.1 billion by 2009, up 139% from €19.7billion in 2003. Reed estimates the market grew 20.3% in 2004, to €23.7 billion.

One big factor: Eastern Europe. The cost savings gained by moving manufacturing to the emerging region is driving the rest of the continent. Eastern Europe's EMS sales will reach €11billion by 2009, up from an estimated €4 billion this year, Reed reports. Eastern Europe is already the third largest EMS market in Europe, with a 16.8% share.

Germany is the market share leader, at 23%, followed by the U.K. (18.1%) and France (13%).

As of last year, the 10 largest companies made up an estimated 64% of total EMS sales, Reed says.

BOCA RATON, FL -- Celestica has landed a major EMS contract with Artesyn Technologies, a maker of power conversion and embedded boards for server and storage, networking, wireless and telecommunications.

In a statement today, Artesyn said it is closing its manufacturing facility Tatabanya, Hungary, and will award European manufacturing services work to Celestica. Most of the products currently being manufactured in Hungary will be transferred to Celestica's factory in Oradea, Romania, Artesyn said.

This transition is expected to be complete by the end of 2005. The move will save Artesyn an estimated $6 million next year.

Joseph O'Donnell, president and CEO, said, "Our intent to outsource production to Celestica is primarily based on their larger purchasing power and ability to leverage economies of scale from a larger manufacturing base. Additionally, Celestica's global manufacturing structure will open up sourcing options in different geographic locations as we grow our global wireless infrastructure business. The new relationship with Celestica gives us the ability to leverage our cost structure, as well as improve gross margins and overall profitability."

IRVINE, CA -- Sparton Corp. will use RiverOne's supply-chain management software in its electronics design and manufacturing operations.

Sparton will implement RiverOne's Interactive software for business processes with customers and suppliers. Financial terms were not announced.

David W. Hockenbrocht, Sparton CEO, said, "By leveraging industry shifts from the outset, we have always been a step ahead of the competition and moving to the next level. RiverOne's unique approach to controlling supply chain relationships in complex, outsourced environments, meshes with our vision and will support us regardless of how our business model continues to evolve."

MANKATO, MN -- Winland Electronics, a designer and manufacturer of  electronic control products and systems, reported second-quarter revenues of $7.1 million, a record. Net income rose more than 600%, to $566,539, over last year.

Sales for the quarter ended June 30 were up 22% over last year, driven primarily from new product line items and improved sales of proprietary products.

Gross profit for the quarter was $1.9 million, up 90% ovfer last year and up 10.6% sequentially.

Gross profit as a percentage of net sales increased from 17% in the second quarter last year to 26.4% this year.

Total operating expenses increased 15.9% to $963,985 but were down 9.9% sequentially. Operating income was up almost five-fold to $914,900, and up 45.4% over the first quarter.

Lorin Krueger, chief executive, said, "[T]hus far our blend of contract services, proprietary products and cost management have enabled us to hold margins even in a competitive environment."

This year Winland has added six new customers and 41 new product introductions in its EMS business

The company had $1.6 million in cash at quarter's end.

Winland performs EMS services and also has its own line of environmental sensors.

Irvine, CA -- The electronics group of Henkel will relocate its mold compound development, application engineering and technical service capabilities from Olean, NY, to the advanced research and applications center in Irvine that opened earlier this year.

Dr. Larry Crane, global director of research, development & engineering for semiconductor materials, said, “With the unification of product development in one facility, Henkel now has the capability to develop our mold compounds, die attach products, thermal interface materials, underfills and encapsulants under one roof with a superior technical team. This streamlined approach is a win-win for everyone, especially customers who can prototype new packages more quickly, accelerate time-to-market and do so more cost-effectively.”

The 53, 000 sq. ft. facility is host to an analytical and failure analysis lab and a 5,000 sq. ft Class 10,000 clean room which houses advanced testing and manufacturing equipment, including a Datacon APS 2200 placement system, a DEK Europa screen/stencil printing system for backside wafer coating and a Disco wafer dicing saw. The operation also has a 2,000 sq. ft surface mount production line with screen printing, reflow and dispensing capabilities.

TAMPA, FL—The Reptron Electronics contract manufacturing facility in Gaylord, MI, has received ISO 13485:2003 certification. The company's Tampa facility received this certification in June 2004.

"This is an important milestone in our commitment to serving the specialized needs of our medical device manufacturing customers. This segment represents over 40% of our current business base. We are pursuing certification in all our facilities to enhance the geographic support flexibility we can offer our medical industry customers, both in terms of process consistency and ability to support our customers' multinational end market regulatory requirements," said Paul J. Plante, president and CEO.

The ISO 13485:2003 quality management system was published to ensure consistency in medical device manufacturer compliance to regulatory quality management requirements worldwide. It is based on quality management system requirements currently contained in medical device regulations around the world and also incorporates elements of ISO 9001:2000.

Additionally, the FDA has informed Reptron that the Gaylord facility is now registered as an EMS provider of medical devices. A similar announcement was made regarding the Tampa facility last year. [These registrations are not an FDA endorsement or approval.]