CONTRACTS
Lockheed MartinHas been awarded an $8.9 million contract by the US Navy to produce and support Low Cost Conformal Arrays (LCCAs) for use aboard submarines. Work will be performed at Lockheed Martin's Syracuse, NY facility. The LCCA is a passive planar array mounted on the aft submarine sail structure and integrated with the Acoustic Rapid COTS Insertion (A-RCI) AN/BQQ-10 sonar system. It provides situational awareness and collision avoidance for improved tactical control in high-density shipping environments.
Science Applications International Corp.Has been awarded a contract from the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate, High Power Microwave (HPM) Division, to support high-energy research and applications. This indefinite-delivery/quantity contract has a six-year period of performance and a total contract value of $49 million. SAIC will deliver high-power microwave components including sources, portable prime power, pulsed-power conditioning systems, antennas, and novel sources of high-energy density plasmas.
Keithley Instruments, Inc.Has announced that ip.access has selected Keithley's Series 2800 RF vector signal analyzers and Series 2900 RF vector generators as the solution for its production testing of WCDMA femtocell base stations. The instruments are built on a next-generation platform that uses a software-defined-radio (SDR) architecture to reduce the cost of testing and shorten time to market.
TriQuint SemiconductorHas announced that the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has awarded TriQuint a 21-month, $4.5-million contract to advance manufacturing methods used to produce high-power, high-frequency gallium-arsenide (GaAs) amplifiers. TriQuint's high-voltage pseudomorphic high-electron-mobility-transistor (pHEMT) GaAs technology will be the focus of the new ONR program. In the first phase of the program, TriQuint will develop a high-frequency, highpower device technology and will extract circuit design models. In the second phase, it will design and fabricate high-power monolithic-microwave integrated circuits (MMICs).
FRESH STARTS
W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.Has joined the Ethernet Alliance, an industry group dedicated to the promotion of Ethernet technologies. Gore will play a key role in the advancement of developing Ethernet copper-cable-interconnect technologies. This includes the GORE SFP+ and QSFP Copper Cable Assemblies, which target the high-performance-computing (HPC), enterprise-networking, and network-storage markets. They also are well suited for emerging 10 GbE and 40 GbE applications.
Fractal Antenna Systems, Inc.Has filed for patent protection on method and apparatus for producing wideband "cloaking" devices and wideband metamaterials. The invention sets a path for the realization of practical devices for rendering objects less distinguishable from their background (that is, invisible) and also for thinner microwave, IR, and optical lenses and devices using "negative refractive index." Previous metamaterial and cloaking devices were incapable of demonstrating effects beyond a narrow frequency or color range and had little or no practical use. The new approach uses the self similarity of fractal geometry in a prescribed approach to make the effects work over a much larger band or range of colors. The effects are arrived at passively, requiring no power. They will be reduced to a "skin" in future applications.
Agilent Technologies, Inc.Has announced a strategic alliance with Aeroflex Microelectronic Solutions to deliver RF and microwave components and Multi-Chip Module solutions for aerospace, satellite, and military applications using Agilent's Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs).
Jacket Micro Devices, Inc. (JMD)Has been awarded patent number 7,439,840 from the US Patent and Trademark Office. The patent, "Methods and Apparatus for High-Performing Multi-Layer Inductors," is JMD's seventh patent related to organic embedded-component design and technology. The patent covers a novel method of fabricating multi-layer inductors using JMD's Multi-Layer Organic (MLO) and Low Temperature Laminated Organic (LTLO) processes. JMD's patent covers the use of high-Q inductors in IC substrates, printed-circuit boards, and standalone organic components. The firm has demonstrated inductor Q factors of over 150 at 2 GHz using this technique.
Axis Network Technology (AxisNT)Has announced the establishment of two new points of presence in the USin San Diego and Baltimoreto support its growing customer base for remote radio heads.
INSIDE ContactlessHas partnered with TIEMPO for the design of a next-generation chip product that incorporates asynchronous design technology. The chip will be designed using TIEMPO clockless and delay-insensitive technology.
Conexant Systems, Inc.Has sold certain domestic and international wireless patents for approximately $15 million. The company retained the right to incorporate the wireless intellectual property in any current and future products. In November 2007, Conexant announced that it was discontinuing further investments in standalone wireless-networking product development.
ON Semiconductor Corp.Has completed its acquisition of Catalyst Semiconductor, Inc. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Catalyst stockholders have generally received 0.706 shares of ON Semiconductor common stock for each share of Catalyst common stock they own.
Spectrum Control, Inc.Has announced that Spectrum Microwave, Inc., its wholly-owned subsidiary, has acquired substantially all of the assets and assumed certain liabilities of SatCon Electronics, Inc. SatCon Electronics, based in Marlborough, MA, designs and manufactures high-performance microelectronic components. The price of the acquisition was approximately $5.6 million.
The Allied Defense Group, Inc.Has closed the sale of its California subsidiary, Global Microwave Systems, Inc. to a subsidiary of Cobham plc, an international company engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced aerospace and defense systems for land, sea and air platforms. Allied Defense Group received $26 million in cash in this transaction.