Press release

C-MAC’s CEO unveils global strategy to lead renaissance and growth at British microelectronics company

C-MAC MicroTechnology HQ at Wooburn Green

Transition to a market-centric approach to drive growth in key vertical markets

28 June 2006, Wooburn Green, UK – Indro Mukerjee, the recently appointed CEO of C-MAC MicroTechnology, today announced his strategic vision for the company as he opened the company’s new headquarters in Wooburn Green, UK. C-MAC is already a significant provider of high-performance, high-reliability microelectronics solutions. With the strong financial backing of investors, private equity firms Francisco Partners and Shah Capital Partners, the former Philips Semiconductor executive, Mukerjee, is now aiming to grow C-MAC into the leading independent, high reliability electronics company in the world.

Following a comprehensive strategic review, Mukerjee announced a significant company reorganisation. C-MAC’s microelectronics design and manufacturing services business will move from its current site-focused approach to being market and customer-oriented. This important change will mean that each C-MAC manufacturing facility will be mapped directly onto the company’s core markets of automotive, specialised communications, High-reliablity Industrial & medical electronics and aerospace. As part of this evolution, each facility will tap into and deepen its sector expertise allowing the company to become more responsive to sector-specific customer requirements.

Through this new market-centric approach, C-MAC will be ideally positioned to take advantage of the current fragmented market. C-MAC will further expand its design capability, offering customers an end-to-end outsourced thick film design and manufacturing solution, further distancing itself from many of its competitors who focus on build to print and the more commoditised parts of the business.

An example of this new approach is C-MAC’s Ronse, Belgium facility, which will become the company’s automotive hub. The increasing distribution of electronic modules and sensors in the automotive sector puts electronics subsystems into increasingly harsh environments, and extremes of temperature, pressure and vibration. In addition, the miniaturisation trend has resulted in the need for increased packaging densities. All of these technology trends favour thick film manufacturing on ceramic and low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) substrates, advanced hermetic chip and wire assembly techniques and multi-chip stacking – core C-MAC areas of expertise. The other C-MAC manufacturing plants in Great Yarmouth, UK and Sherbrooke, Canada will focus on the military & aerospace sectors and High-reliablity Industrial & medical electronics and specialised communications sectors respectively.

A key element of C-MAC’s strategy is a continued focus on product development in its frequency control products division maintaining its lead in high performance products.  The company is already a world leader in frequency control products with over 70 years history in manufacturing quartz based products. For example, C-MAC’s space qualified crystals were a critical component on board the Huygens space probe that was travelling to Titan, one of Saturn’s largest moons. The probe spent six and a half years in space and when it landed on Titan, the C-MAC crystals enabled the on-board transceiver to successfully transmit vital new data and photography.

Forming a key part of the company’s Frequency Control Products group is the Pluto temperature controlled oscillators TCXO product range - the industry’s most precise, least power consuming, fully surface mountable and cost-effective TCXOs. Mukerjee believes the specialised communications sector in particular stands to benefit by deploying C-MAC’s TCXOs in wireless base stations, global positioning systems and emergency beacons.

To support the company’s new strategy, Mukerjee has set up a headquarters close to Heathrow and organised the company around market segments with a greater focus on the customer.

Indro Mukerjee, CEO of C-MAC, said: “My vision is to develop C-MAC into the premier high-reliability, high-performance microelectronics design and manufacturing partner to key customers in our target markets. We’re excited about our growth prospects in automotive, aerospace, medical electronics and specialised communications markets in particular.

“We are extremely proud of our British heritage and believe that there is a future for specialist electronics manufacturing industry in the UK. Today, C-MAC is a global business with around a 1,000 staff and we are working to continue our strong growth and increase share in our target markets. Having an experienced management team in place and the strong financial backing of our investors, private equity firms Francisco Partners and Shah Capital Partners, coupled with a focus on key vertical markets and our core competencies means, we are now well positioned to aggressively grow revenues and become a market leader in each of our target markets.”

- Ends -

 

Notes for Editors:

Headed by Indro Mukerjee, C-MAC MicroTechnology is the world leader in high-reliability electronic systems, modules and components for the automotive, medical electronics, specialised communications and aerospace industries. Our head office is in Wooburn Green, UK, and we have design and manufacturing facilities in the UK, France, Belgium and Canada, with additional dedicated sales and customer support teams throughout Europe, the USA and China. We have built up an extensive intellectual property portfolio and considerable electronics design and manufacturing expertise geared to our target industries. Our products are often found in applications that operate in harsh environments, at extremes of temperature or frequency. The company is divided into two business groups.

Design & Manufacturing Services. C-MAC MicroTechnology offers unrivalled expertise in the design and manufacture of advanced high-precision microelectronics systems. Specialities at our production sites at Great Yarmouth in the UK, Sherbrooke in Canada and Ronse in Belgium include thick-film printing on ceramic and other substrates, surface-mount hybrid circuits, DC/DC power modules, direct-attach flipchip, low-temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC), chip-on-board (COB), multichip module (MCM) assemblies and PCB assembly. These manufacturing resources are complemented by an integrated design-to-test service encompassing ASIC design as well as analogue, digital, RF, mixed-mode and thermal simulation. Through our independently accredited test house facility, we can carry out product qualification and material evaluation to internationally recognized standards.

Frequency Control Products. C-MAC MicroTechnology has a 70-year pedigree in designing and manufacturing high-performance oscillators and quartz crystals. Our frequency control product range encompasses AT and SC cut crystals, simple packaged crystal oscillators (XOs or SPXOs), voltage controlled crystal oscillators (VCXOs), temperature compensated crystal oscillators (TCXOs), oven controlled crystal oscillators (OCXOs), and rubidium oscillators and clocks. Particular specializations include patented ASIC-based high-stability TCXOs, ultrastable OCXOs and SDH/SONET reference oscillators. Manufacturing of quartz-based products at Lincoln, UK, and Argenteuil, France, is supported by design and sales support centres at Harlow and Crewkerne in the UK.

C-MAC’s quality standards and accreditations include: ISO 13485, ISO 9001:2000, MIL-PRF-38534, MIL-STD-883, QS 9000, TS 16949, and ISO 17025 independent test house accreditation.


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