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br> Leoni, a German cable and wiring systems manufacturer, will acquire Studer at a price translating to about 105 million euros. With sales of about 84 million euros in the 2005 financial year and approximately 350 employees, Studer, founded in 1939 is one of the five largest Swiss cable manufacturers.

Philips Electronics confirmed closure of the deal, as announced on 9 January 2006, to transfer Philips' optical pick-up (OPU) business unit to Arima Devices, an affiliated company of Arima Computer, a Taiwanese group. As a result, Philips holds a 12% share in Arima Devices. The Dutch company also announced that it has completed the merger of Philips Mobile Display Systems with Toppoly Optoelectronics of Taiwan to form a mobile display company. The company is named TPO and it's principal shareholders are Compal Electronics (25.1%) and Philips (17.5%).

Wafer manufacturer Sumco announced that it has reached an agreement with Komatsu to acquire a 51% stake in its silicon wafer subsidiary, Komatsu Electronic Metals for ¥36.9 billion (about $320.4 million U.S.). The acquisition will make Sumco similar in size to top wafer supplier Shin-Etsu Handotai.

Sumco had net sales of ¥1.702 trillion ($15.035 billion U.S.) in fiscal year ended Mar. 31, 2006. Komatsu Electronic Metals (KEM) had net sales of ¥86.6 billion ($765 million) over the same period.

Powerwave Technologies and Filtronic announced that they have signed a definitive agreement for Powerwave to acquire the majority of Filtronic's Wireless Infrastructure division business for a combination of 20.7 million newly issued shares of Powerwave common stock and $150 million in cash. The specific product lines included in this transaction comprise transmit/receive filters, integrated remote radio heads and power amplifier products, all for use in commercial wireless infrastructure base station equipment. The proposed acquisition does not include point to point radio backhaul equipment, as well as Filtronic's other divisions, of compound semiconductors and defence electronics. Immediately following the close, Filtronic will have an equity interest in Powerwave of approximately 13%. Filtronic's wireless infrastructure business had a 12-month revenue for the period ending November 30, 2005 of approximately $332.1 million. Powerwave believes that combined revenues for calendar year 2007 will easily exceed $1.4 billion.

A key part of the strategy for Filtronic is to achieve further substantial growth in value for compound semiconductors. This division is seeing strong long term market growth as the mobile handset industry continues to adopt switches based on GaAs pHEMT technology, with the expectation that they will be used in around 80% of handsets produced by 2008, says Filtronic. So, the British company plans to expand the semiconductor facility to increase the size of this business by up to three times in the coming two years, at an estimated cost of £45m over the next twelve months.

Soitec, French supplier of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers, announces the conclusion of an agreement to acquire all the shares of TraciT Technologies, a company based in Grenoble, France. TraciT Technologies specializes in thin-film layer transfer technologies that leverage molecular adhesion and mechanical, as well as chemical, thinning processes for the production of micro-electro mechanical (MEMS) and power circuits. A spin-off from the CEA-Leti, TraciT Technologies was formed in 2003. Following an initial development phase, TraciT Technologies, with its confirmed potential growth, has to quickly move to production to satisfy the needs of its customers in Europe, North America and Asia.

Analog Devices has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Integrant Technologies of Seoul, Korea. An innovator in the field of high-performance analog circuits designed for reconfigurable radio frequency (RF) signal processing, Integrant (78 employees) supplies low-power radio tuners that allow mobile communications, computer, and consumer devices to receive digital television (TV) and digital radio broadcasts. Integrant is best known for the low-power Digital Multimedia Broadcast (DMB) tuners it supplies to Korea's leading mobile phone manufacturers. ADI expects to pay approximately $127 million in cash at the closing in exchange for substantially all of the outstanding shares of Integrant. ADI may pay up to an additional $33 million upon the achievement of certain milestones.