SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ – Cookson Group’s Alpha and Enthone businesses have become part of the newly formed Alent plc.

MEDWAY, MA -- Gunter Erdmann, the former president of MPM, has died. He was 73.

MANASSAS, VA – Zestron is presenting the first in a 10-part cleaning webinar series: “Why Clean PCBs.”

SAN JOSE – Growing demand for mobile devices, such as tablets and phones, inspires an improved outlook for chip sales in 2013, according to SEMI’s latest World Fab Forecast.

SHENZHEN -- Chinese authorities are investigating Foxconn Technology Group for possible bribe-taking, the EMS company acknowledged today.

BILLINGSTAD, NORWAY -- Kitron's chief financial officer has resigned, effective by the end of July.

LAS VEGAS -- Panasonic president Kazuhiro Tsuga yesterday said additional layoffs may be in store for the money-losing electronics giant. Some non-core business units could be sold to raise cash, he added in remarks at the Consumer Electronics Show here.

CAMDENTON, MO – Speedline Technologies - Electrovert says that all wave soldering machines sold after Nov. 1, 2012 will now carry a lifetime warranty on the solder pot casting.

SANTA ANA, CA – A PV Module Reliability webinar will take place Jan. 17.

NEENAH, WI -- Plexus last night preannounced its fiscal first-quarter results, saying sales would be about $531 million, well below prior guidance of $550 million to $580 million. The company said it was seeing broad-based decline in its December quarter demand, in particular in its networking/communications segment.

MINNEAPOLIS -- EMS firm Nortech Systems has completed its acquisition of a 58,000- sq. ft. manufacturing facility in Mankato, MN, from Winland Electronics.

SAN JOSE -- OnCore Manufacturing has promoted Sajjad Malik to president and CEO, replacing Dan Perez, who is retiring.