Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Current Issue

News

FOREST GROVE, OR - Merix Corp. has agreed to buy Eastern Pacific Circuits Ltd. for $120 million cash. Merix said the acquisition of the Hong Kong-based PCB supplier includes earn-out consideration of up to $8M based on 2005 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).

Merix plans to finance the transaction, expected to close in June, with a combination of available cash and debt. Eastern Pacific has four manufacturing plants in southern China and one in Hong Kong. In 2004, Eastern Pacific's preliminary unaudited sales were $143M, with adjusted EBITDA of $14.1M.

NY, April 14 -- U.S. IT spending will increase to $417 billion in 2005 and reach $497 billion by 2008, a report from IDC reveals. According to the study, government, manufacturing, and banking continue to drive IT spending in process management and content management.

According to Anne Songtao Lu, program manager for IDC's Worldwide Vertical Markets, the consumer/home vertical has become increasingly important for IT vendors.

SAN JOSE, CA -- Sanmina-SCI Corp. has demonstrated interoperability of its scalable ATCA (Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture) compatible backplane across a spectrum of existing and proposed backplane interconnect standards.

"We have completed testing and collected electrical and performance data that demonstrates how Sanmina-SCI's suite of design and manufacturing techniques enhances system-level interoperability," said George Dudnikov, Sr. VP and CTO for the PCB division. "The high-performance market is starting to see some forward momentum, and OEMs are beginning to recognize the performance benefits of using low-distortion interconnects in their systems, which are compatible with drivers and receivers from all major silicon manufacturers. As a result, system designers enjoy a variety of options."

The ATCA-compatible backplanes equalize the performance variations seen across major connector technologies (press-fit, SMT, BGA); dielectrics (low-cost and enhanced materials); existing and proposed industry-wide, high-performance interconnect protocols (Ethernet, XAUI, Infiniband, Fibre Channel, Compact PCT, ATCA, VXI, UXPi); modulation schemes (NRZ, PAM, multi-level signaling); and signal-conditioning schemes (passive and active driver pre-emphasis and receiver equalization).