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AUSTIN, TX – Freescale Semiconductor has filed multiple lawsuits against Panasonic, JVC and Funai Electric, alleging illegal use of its intellectual property.

In the suits, Freescale cites failures by the firms to renew license agreements, and seeks to bar their products from being imported into the US.

The suits were filed in US District Court in Austin and with the US International Trade Commission.

Products potentially impacted by the suits include TVs, memory cards, video cameras, digital cameras and media players, such as Blu-ray DVD players.

The trade commission lawsuit also names several retailers, including Best Buy, B&H Foto & Electronics, Wal-Mart, QVC and Buy.com.

MACAO – Deswell Industries reported fiscal third-quarter sales fell 42.4% from last year to $21.4 million.

The company reported a net loss of $400,000, down from net income of $1 million last year. Operating income dropped 67% to $300,000 for the period ended Dec. 31.

The company’s EMS-related sales plunged 49.7% to $8.2 million. Gross profit in the electronic and metallic segment increased to 8.5% of net sales for the third quarter ended Dec. 31, compared to 7.3% of net sales for the year-ago quarter. The improved gross margin in the electronic and metallic segment was mainly attributed to lower materials cost offsetting higher factory overheads.

Chief executive Mr. Franki Tse said, "We continued to see the impact of the difficult global economy and our sequential sales performance was essentially flat. There has been some strengthening in order volume recently and we believe that we are well positioned to benefit from a recovering global economy. That being said, we remain cautious and continue to evaluate ways to reduce expenses."

NORTH BILLERICA, MA -- Reflow soldering equipment OEM BTU International reported fourth-quarter net sales fell 17.7% from a year ago to $12.1 million.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s proposal to make the R&D tax credit permanent would be a landmark accomplishment, SEMI said this week.

SMYRNA, GA – More than 2,500 PCB designers, fabricators and assemblers registered for Virtual PCB (virtual-pcb.com), the industry's only virtual trade show and conference, which is taking place this week.

TAIPEI – Last week’s earthquake in Chile, the largest producer of copper, could push electronics component prices higher as a result of a sustained surge in metal prices.

TEMPE, AZ – Manufacturing continued to grow in February, but the rate of growth decelerated, as the PMI registered 56.5%, a decrease of 1.9 percentage points sequentially, says the Institute for Supply Management.

A reading above 50% indicates the manufacturing economy is generally expanding.

New Orders registered 59.5%, down 6.4 percentage points. Production was 58.4%, down 7.8 points. Inventories contracted at a slower rate in February, as the index registered 47.3%, up 0.8 points. Customer Inventories grew 5 points to 37%, and Backlogs hit 61%, also up 5 points.

“The manufacturing sector grew for the seventh consecutive month during February. While New Orders and Production were not as strong as in January, they still show significant month-over-month growth,” said ISM spokesperson Norbert J. Ore in a press release.

The Employment Index was up 2.8 percentage points for the month to 56.1%, the third consecutive month of growth.

The overall economy grew for the 10th consecutive month, says ISM.

EVERYWHERE -- A series of moderated technical chats on everything from prototype design to tin whiskers highlight Virtual PCB, the online conference and trade show that kicks off today.

HERNDON, VA – iNEMI says the electronics manufacturing industry must work collectively at all levels of the supply chain to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions affecting climate change.

Integral is development of a product carbon footprint methodology that will enable companies to quantify environmental impact of their products and easily assess tradeoffs to make improvements, says the consortium.

iNEMI members supporting the call for an industry-standard PCF methodology are Alcatel-Lucent; ASSET InterTech Inc.; Cookson Electronics; Cisco; Dell Inc.; DYCONEX; Elite Material Co. Ltd.; Guangdong Shengyi Sci. Tech Co. Ltd.; Henkel; HP; Intel Corp.; Integrated Service Technology Inc.; Industrial Technology Research Institute; Lenovo; Micro Systems Engineering Inc.; Purdue University; Quanta Computer Inc.; STATS ChipPAC; TI; Tyco Electronics, and Universal Instruments.

iNEMI’s position on product carbon footprinting can be downloaded at http://thor.inemi.org/webdownload/projects/ELSC/Position_Statement/iNEMI_PCF_Feb2010.pdf.

MADISON, AL – STI Electronics Inc. has been awarded an IPC contract to update the existing IPC-A-610 and J-STD-001 training and certification programs to the E revisions.

The two updates are being developed concurrently with betas to be conducted from April to June.

STI has previously developed or updated curricula for IPC-A-610, J-STD-001, IPC-A-620 and IPC-7711/7721.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. STI is also a training center for the standards.

DUSSELDORF, GERMANY -- Henkel reported fourth-quarter sales of 3.35 million euros, down 5.5% from a year ago. Organic sales increased 0.6% versus the prior-year quarter.The operating profit was 293 million euros, including one-time charges and gains of 121 million euros. The Adhesive Technologies business sector performed noticeably better than expected, the company said.

For the year, sales were 13.6 billion euros, down 3.9% year-over-year. The net loss for the year was 195 million euros, while the gross margin was 8%.

Operating profit (EBIT) rose 38.6% to 1.08 billion euros.Adjusted for one-time gains and charges of 284 million euros, operating profit fell 6.6% to 1.36 billion euros, on slower Adhesive Technologies sales.

During 2009, Henkel lowered its net debt 26.3% to 2.8 billion euros.

For the year, the Adhesive Technologies unit's sales fell 10.2% organically to 6.2 million euros. Adjusted operating profit was down 25.6% to 506 million euros percent lower due to considerable volume decreases and a resulting lower level of capacity utilization.The company said its electronics business was heavily affected by the semiconductor downturn.