HARRISBURG, PA - Tyco Electronics Corp. will close its Austin PCB manufacturing plant by July 1, and lay off about 190 employees, according to a news article.

Mike Ratcliff, a spokesman for Tyco, told a local paper that work from the 240,000 sq.-ft. plant will be transfered to other Tyco plants. The Austin location has stopped taking orders for PCBs but will fulfill existing orders.

"The printed circuit group has been evaluating how best to operate the business, reduce costs where possible and eliminate duplication," Ratcliff says. "It's a competitive industry."

Tyco purchased the plant from Raytheon, which in turn obtained it through a large purchase of the defense business from Texas Instruments.

There has been no report at this time of other Tyco operations closing down.

TOKYO -- Kyocera Corp. has made plans to outsource its cell phone production in North America to Flextronics International and cut 1,700 jobs at its mobile phone division to turn the loss-making business around.

The latest restructuring follows Kyocera's announcement in March that it will quit its struggling digital camera operations this year. The company will outsource production at U.S. unit Kyocera Wireless Corp. to Flextronics from late May.