Parts obsolescence is a real issue in high-reliability electronics like aerospace and defense systems. According to an April 2008 article in IEEE Spectrum, Uncle Sam spends $10 billion per year managing and mitigating electronics obsolescence issues. It's a tough job, but someone has to keep track of where all of the dead microwave nameplates go. Microwaves101 has been working at this endeavor for the past decade (see http://microwaves101.com/encyclopedia/wherenow.cfm).
Audience participation is important to building the database. Most of this material was contributed one or two companies at a time by alert readers of Microwaves101.com. Other resources provide the backgrounds of top-tier defense contractors, but we are focused on manufacturers of microwave components. Why? Picture this: you need to find replacement parts for a receiver that used custom Q-bit amplifiers that you paid big bucks for back in nineteen-ninety-whatever. Q-bit doesn't exist anymore. Would you rather start again from scratch or track down the company that inherited all of those drawings?
Here, we present an alphabetized list of defunct microwave nameplates. If you have any new information or corrections, please send them to [email protected].
We take no responsibility for errors or omissions.
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ACCO USA's modeling and characterization teams (along with Agilent Technologies' high-profile east coast Component Test Systems group) joined to form Auriga Measurement Systems (Lowell, MA) in 2004.
Adams-Russell was folded into M/A-COM a long time ago. M/A-COM was bought by AMP, which was bought by Tyco. Tyco then sold the M/A-COM division to Cobham, PLC.
AEP is now a Radiall Company. Founder Ben Travelli made arrangements to sell AEP to Radiall just before he passed away in 2005.
Airborne Instruments Laboratories (AIL) merged with EDO and has since been sold to ITT. AIL used to be in Deer Park, NY. But it has now relocated a few miles away to Amityville, NY.
Alpha Industries is part of Skyworks. Alpha Industries sold off its commercial millimeter products group, which became Advanced Frequency Products (AFP).
AFP was bought by ST Olektron. The group was then sold to Endwave.
American Electronic Laboratories, Inc. (AEL) of Colmar, PAmaker of antennas, microwave components, solid-state devices, and microwave instrumentswas bought by Tracor and then BAE Systems-Electronics & Integrated Solutions. It has been owned by Cobham, PLC since 2008, operating in Landsdale, PA.
American Technical Ceramics (Huntington Station, NY) was bought by AVX in 2007.
Americon Microwave Industries, a manufacturer of microwave connectors and components, merged with Omni Spectra in the 1970s. The Founder and CEO of Americon, Bevin V. Cherot, became CEO of Omni Spectra until it was purchased by M/A-COM. After M/A-COM was sold to Tyco, some of the former M/A-COM employees purchased the Omni Spectra components (and name) and formed XMA Corp. (Manchester, NH).
AML Communications designs and manufactures amplifiers and subsystems. It was purchased by Microsemi Corp. this past May.
Amplica of Newbury Park, CA was bought by Comsat, Triax, and finally Charter Technologies before it was dismembered and scattered to the winds. Some of the original significant technical talent and founders are now involved with CAP Wireless, Inc. (also in Newbury Park, CA).
Amplifonix (Philadelphia, PA) is now part of Spectrum Microwave.
Anzac became part of M/A-COM, which was bought by AMP, which was bought by Tyco. Tyco sold M/A-COM to Cobham.
Applied Radiation Corp. (ARCO; Walnut Creek, CA) manufactured microwave linear accelerators and high-power microwave waveguide elements (pulse modulators, waveguide couplers, adapters, windows, tuners, etc.). It became the ARCO Division of High Voltage Engineering (circa 1965) and was later sold (circa 1970) to Siemens Medical Systems (Concord, CA).
Arcom was bought by Dover and then closed. LNX Corp. bought the assets from Dover and is now making products that Alpha (Skyworks) and others no longer make.
Atlantic Microwave is part of Cobham DES.
Avantek was purchased by HP Semiconductor, which became part of Agilent. As of December 2005, the Avantek division of HP that spun off to Agilent Technologies was sold and morphed into Avago Technologies. Another chunk of Avantek was sold to Powerwave Technologies. (This unit just recently closed its doors.) Some of the of Powerwave engineers (ex-Avantek also) formed a consulting firm called Telemakus, LLC. Some Avantek assets were picked up by Avnet, which formed Avnet-MTS. (MTS stands for "microwave technical solutions.") Teledyne (via Teledyne Cougar) bought the assets of Avnet-MTS late in October 2005. Believe it or not, you may be able to buy that Avantek amplifier from Cougar. If Cougar doesn't sell it or a replacement part, they actually stock a fair amount of the old Avantek die, according to insiders. Avantek also spawned a bunch of spinoffs:
DBS Microwave formed and then sold itself to Narda Microwave, which consolidated DBS into its Narda West operation in Folsom, CA.
Milliwave Technologies eventually sold itself to TRW Space and Electronics Group and stayed in Diamond Springs, CA. TRW subsequently sold Milliwave Technologies to Endgate Corp. The combined operation then became Endwave. Manufacturing remained in Diamond Springs, but all engineering, sales, and marketing went to Sunnyvale. The founders of Milliwave are the current founders of Norden Millimeter (Placerville, CA).
ALC Microwave in El Dorado Hills, CA.
Aldetec in Sacramento, CA.
Phase One in Rocklin, CA.
Genesis Microwave in El Dorado Hills, CA.
AWR Corp. was bought by National Instruments in July 2011 for $58 million.
BOMAC Laboratories (originally in Beverly, MA) was bought by Varian Associates around 1961-1962. Bomac was one of three sources of microwave diodes (1N21, 1N23, 1N58, etc.) as well as some magnetrons.
Celeritek Defense Group was sold to Teledyne Microwave and relocated from Santa Clara to Mountain View, CA.
Celeritek Semiconductor (Santa Clara, CA) was bought by Mimix Broadband in 2005. Mimix kept the product line and later sold the Celeritek gallium-arsenide (GaAs) fab to Universal Semiconductor Technology, Inc. (USTI).
Central Microwave Company (CMC) of St. Charles, MO primarily built Gunn-diode-based products and later some FET amplifiers. CMC was formed by Jim and Dee Caldwell, Dr. Robert Goldwasser, Dr. Fred Rosenbaum (the latter two both of Washington University), William Meyers, and Darrel Bengfort. Most of them had met while working for Varian. CMC was sold to Alpha Industries around 1982. It moved to Maryland Heights, MO around 1984. Around 1989 (recall aerospace cutbacks), work was pulled back to the mothership in Woburn, MA and the CMC facility was shuttered.
Compact Software is part of Ansoft.
Conexant (previously Rockwell International) spun off the GaAs (Newbury Park) portion of its fab to Skyworks (previously Alpha Industries). The other fabs became Jazz Semiconductor. Jazz merged with Tower in September 2008 and is now called TowerJazz. Tower was a National Semiconductor spinoff. TowerJazz is headquartered in Israel and publicly traded on NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Connecting Devices, Inc. (CDI) was bought by Tensolite.
Continental Microwave and Tool was acquired by Chelton, which is part of Cobham DES.
Corning Frequency Control is part of Vectron International as of September 2004.
Cougar Components was bought by Teledyne in June 2005.
CTI is now part of Herley.
Demornay-Bonardi product-line rights were bought by Systron-Donner. Systron-Donner continued to use legacy D-B numbers for all standard gain horn models, so it was easy to find the older parts. Systron Donner then sold the DeMornay-Bonardi rights to STC Microwave Systemsa division of Crane Aerospace and Electronics. STC Microwave, in turn, sold these rights to Penn Engineering. They substituted all new model numbers for the horns, but they are the same old D-B parts.
Dexcel (an early GaAs MESFET company) was bought by Gould in 1985. Dexcel/Gould was later bought by Litton Solid State, who also bought out Harris Microwave in Milipitas, CA and Varian Semiconductors in Santa Clara, CA. Litton Solid State became Filtronic Solid State in the 1990s. In 2004, Teledyne Microwave bought the military operations of both Filtronic Solid State and Celeritek. Filtronic S.S. kept the semiconductor/fab technology while Mimix Broadband bought Celeritek's semiconductor operations (which have since been sold). Teledyne Microwave can help with legacy Dexcel/Gould products as well as Filtronic Solid State and Celeritek.
Digital Microwave is now Stratex.
Eagleware is now part of Agilent, which claims that it will continue with Eagleware-Elanix software products.
EEsof was another spinoff of Amplica by Bill Childs and Chuck Abranson back around 1983. EEsof was acquired by HP in 1993 and later spun out as part of Agilent in 1999, thus becoming Agilent EEsof EDA.
EIP Microwave used to make the frequency counters that you'd need because "sweepers" drifted all over the place (before "synthesizers" were available). Since 1999, it has been folded into Phase Matrix.
Electro-Films was acquired by Vishay in 2000.
Electromagnetic Sciences, Inc.a spinoff from Scientific Atlanta in 1968produced low-loss ferrite circulators, isolators, and switches for space applications. Their name changed to EMS Technologies, Inc. in 1999 (easier to say than "electromagnetic sciences"). The company has been located and still resides in and around Tech Park in Norcross, GA.
EMI Varian (the 1969 microwave-tube joint venture between EMI and Varian) became Thorn EMI Varian in 1979, when Thorn merged with EMI. The joint venture with Varian was allowed to lapse in 1989. The remaining UK company became Thorn Microwave Devices, Ltd., a subsidiary of Thorn EMI Electronics. As part of Sir Colin Southgate's plan to increase shareholder value by making the company smaller, the Defence Electronics businesses were disposed of. In 1995, the microwave tube business (which by then was also making complete amplifiers and high-voltage power supplies) was bought by its management, becoming TMD Technologies, Ltd. The company has grown and prospered since then. It is still manufacturing magnetrons, klystrons, traveling-wave tubes, and high-voltage power supplies.
English Electric Valve (EEV) was part of Marconi for a while. It has been an independent company called E2V since 2002.
Endwave sold off its defense and security business to Microsemi in April 2009. The rest of Endwave merged with Gigoptics in June 2011.
Engelmann Microwave is now part of KDI/Aeroflex.
Enon Microwave, Inc. of Topsfield, MA was folded into Micronetics in 2002.
Farinon Electric was bought by Harris Corp. in 1981. In 1999, part of the company was bought out to form M2 Global.
FEI Microwave was split when part of it was bought by STC Microwave Systems (a part of Crane Corp.). Much of the microwave/hybrid group was moved to Frequency Electronics, Inc. (FEI) in Mitchell Field, NY.
Ferretec was originally sold to Litton Solid State. Litton Solid State was then sold to Teledyne Microwave and relocated from Santa Clara to Mountain View, CA.
Film Microelectronics, Inc. (FMI) is now SatCon Electronics.
Filtronic Compound Semiconductors is now part of RFMD.
Frequency Sources (FSI) became part of Loral and was renamed Loral Microwave-FS. Then Lockheed-Martin bought Loral and temporarily merged it with its recently purchased Sanders Associates (under the name Lockheed-Sanders). When Lockheed-Martin sold off Sanders to BAE Systems, it kept the FSI operation and merged it with the Missiles and Fire Control Division (which it still supports to this day). The FSI diode operation (gigahertz devices) is now part of Microsemi in Lowell, MA.
FSY Microwave (Columbia, MD) is part of Spectrum Microwave.
Fujitsu Compound Semiconductor is now part of Eudyna.
General Microcircuits Corp. (GMC) is also part of Herley. However, the Billerica, MA facility was sold to Solid State Testing (SST).
General Microwave (Long Island) has been part of Herley since 1999.
Gilbert, the original inventors of those tiny push-on connectors widely known as GPO, is part of Corning.
Grayzel was bought by Adams-Russell when it was part of M/A-COM.
Harris Microwave Semiconductor (a GaAs fab) was bought by Samsung around 1993 for $5 million. Samsung kept it until about 1998, when they sold it to Watkins-Johnson Co. WJ folded it into their semiconductor business unit. Harris sold its silicon fab to Intersil in 1999.
Hazeltine is now BAE Systems in Greenlawn, NY.
HE Microwave, once a piece of Hughes Aircraft Co., became part of Raytheon after the 1997 merger (shared with Delphi Delco Electronic Systems). Not long afterward, Raytheon shuttered this Tucson, AZ facility. What was left over became part of the other parent and moved south of the border.
Hewlett-Packard Co. spun off the test and measurement part of the company to become Agilent Technologies. The semiconductor division of HP, which moved with Agilent, would later spin off as Avago Technologies. The HP name survives as a purveyor of computers and printers.
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Hughes Aircraft is now partly owned by Raytheon, Boeing, and General Motors. Some other pieces scattered to smaller companies like Millitech and spinoffs like DirectTV. Hughes Gallium Arsenide Operations in Torrence, CA was quickly shuttered by Raytheon. Hughes Aircraft in Carlsbad, CApurveyor of automated wire bonding and die-attach systems became Palomar Technologies in 1995. It moved to Vista, CA, but the company is back in Carlsbad again.
The only pieces left of Howard Robard Hughes' empire that bear his name are Hughes Network Systems, Hughes Medical Foundation, and the Hughes Federal Credit Union. The "HRL" in HRL Laboratories officially doesn't stand for anything.
Hyletronics Corp. was first merged into Filtronic Solid State. It is now part of Teledyne Microwave. In its own words, "The acquisition of Hyletronics, through Filtronics Solid State, introduced a family of microwave switches into our product line. Teledyne Microwave uses these switches as key building blocks in many multifunction assemblies."
Inmet is part of Aeroflex.
Innowave was bought by STC Microwave Systems, a part of Crane Corp. since 2003.
Inter-Continental Microwave (ICM) is now part of C.E. Precision Assemblies, Inc. Founded by Werner Schuerch in Santa Clara, CA, the products that ICM made throughout the years can only be compared to the Swiss watch or Swiss Army knife, but with much more attention paid to RF grounding!
IntraDyne Systems spun out of Melabs in 1968, which died in 1970.
iTerra is now Gigoptix.
ITT's GaAsTek foundry in Roanoke, VA was bought by M/A-COM, a part of Tyco (now Cobham). This foundry closed in 2010, but relocated to Blacksburg, VA. Blacksburg completed a fully functional transistor 99 days after shutting down the Roanoke fab.
Jazz Semiconductor merged with Tower in September 2008 and is now called TowerJazz. Tower was a National Semiconductor spinoff. TowerJazz is headquartered in Israel and publicly traded on NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
JCA Technology (Jim Chao Associates) was originally sold to New Focus, which eventually was acquired by Bookham. It was most recently sold to Endwave, now part of GigOptics. Ciao Wireless, a new company in Camarillo, CA, is Chao's latest venture.
Johnson Components, formerly E.F. Johnson Componentsa manufacturer of microwave connectors and cable assemblies based in Waseca, MNwas purchased by Emerson Connectivity Solutions (a division of Emerson Electric) in 2000.
KDI/Triangle is now part of Aeroflex.
K&L Microwave is now owned by Dover Corp. Some other microwave-oriented companies that Dover now owns include Dielectric Laboratories, Dow Key Microwave, Novacap, and Vectron International.
kW Microwave was bought by Teledyne in April 2006.
Litton Airtron is part of Cobham DES.
Litton Industries was bought by Northrop Grumman. What was once Litton Solid State is now part of Filtronics. The first operating division of Litton Industries, the Tube Division, was sold to L-3 Communications (in 2003). It is now known as the Electron Devices Division. NG retained rights to the Litton brand themselves.
LNR Communications is now part of L3-Narda in Hauppauge, NY.
Logimetrics (a supplier of laboratory-grade traveling-wave-tube amplifiers) was absorbed into Instruments For Industry (IFI). IFI has confirmed that several of the Logimetrics guys are there and they can evaluate and/or repair Logimetrics amps. They also have direct replacements.
M/A-COM was bought by AMP, which was bought by Tyco. Tyco sold M/A-COM to Cobham. The M/A-COM microwave window group was bought by Communications & Power Industries' (CPI's) Beverly Microwave group (Beverly, MA), which traces its roots to the Varian brothers.
Magnum Microwave was bought by Remec and then merged into C&S Hybrid (also bought by Remec). The Magnum product line was sold as part of the Wireless Access sales with Q-Bit.
Materials Research Corp. (MRC) merged a long time ago with MIC technologies in Texas, which then got bought by Aeroflex. In 2004, Aeroflex exited the thin-film business, selling the original MRC Pearl River plant to Vishay. At one time, the Pearl River plant was the biggest supplier of polished 99%-alumina substrates in the world.
Microwave Development Corp. (MDC) was bought by Chelton Microwave Corp. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Cobham, PLC) in 2005 for $14 million, as was Continental Microwave and Tool. Their two product lines were merged into CMT's facility in Exeter, NH.
MDI is now part of Herley.
MDT (a GaAs fab) was acquired by Microsemi.
Melabsone of the original isolator companies from the 1950swas sold in 1969 to Smith Corona Marchant (SCM), the typewriter company. It sold the isolator division to M/A-COM several years later.
MicroMetrics (a silicon house) was acquired by Aeroflex.
Microwave Associates was the original name of M/A-COM. The company was started in August 1950 by four engineers: Vessarios Chiga, Louis Roberts, Hugh Wainwright, and Richard M. Walker. Their venture grew out of development work that some of them carried out at MIT Radiation Laboratory during the Second World War. The GaAs semiconductor building in Lowell, MA is named "The Walker Building" after Richard Walker.
Microwave Design & Manufacturing, Inc. of Calabasas, CA has been part of Rantec Microwave since 2000.
Microwave Power Devices (MPD) on Long Island, NY, was bought by Ericsson for $110 million in 2000. Ericsson sold off the military part to Comtech, downsized, and then sold the remains to Powerwave for $10 million three years later. Powerwave sold off all of the big machinery and closed the NY office in June 2004, which ended any vestige of MPD/Ericsson.
Microwave Semiconductor Corp. (MSC) made state-of-the-art discrete GaAs FETs in NJ in the 1970s and 1980s. Founded by Ron Rosenzweig, MSC was eventually bought out by Siemens. MSC had a large facility in Billerica, MA on Executive Park Drive that it acquired from Crown Microwave, which was sold to SDI after Siemens took over all of MSC. The MSC/SDI facilities in Billerica made diodes, microwave switches, and limiters.
Microwave Solutions, Inc. of National City, CA was founded by Edward Teyssier in 1984. He worked at Avantek from 1977 to 1979 and then Amplica from 1979 to 1984.
Microwave Specialty Corp. was merged into Rantec Microwave Systems in 2002.
MIC Technologies became part of Aeroflex. Now, whatever is left of it is part of Vishay.
Midwest Microwave in Saline, MI was purchased by Bevin V. Cherot. In the early 1990s, they designed and developed the full range of microwave connectors and microwave components to match Americon/Omni-Spectra/M/A-COM designs along with custom designs that primarily targeted military applications. Emerson Connectivity Solutions, a division of Emerson Electric, purchased Midwest Microwave in 2004. Operations were relocated to Waseca, MN in 2008.
Mimix Broadband was purchased by GaAs Labs a couple of years ago. GaAs Labs then went on to purchase the microwave-components part of M/A-COM (with Cobham buying the rest). Last year, the two were merged and then re-branded as M/A-COM Technology Solutions, which includes the following subsidiary companies: Mimix Broadband, Inc., M/A-COM Tech Asia, Inc., and M/A-COM Technology Solutions (Cork), Ltd. M/A-COM recently sold off its ferrite business line.
Motorola Oscillators and Filters went to CTS Wireless in about 1999.
Motorola Semiconductors was sold off in two separate parts. The first portion to go was the group that did small discrete transistors, diodes, and standard-logic-gate ICs. It was spun off as ON Semiconductor in 1999. The remaining portion of Motorola Semiconductors was spun off as Freescale Semiconductor in 2004. Freescale built the higher-markup silicon: the DSPs, CPUs, and the RF power transistors. Freescale was recently bought by an investment group led by Blackstone. It closed the RF semiconductor fab in Tempe in 2009.
Murata Erie has shortened its name to Murata. The Murata Manufacturing Co. had purchased a company in Trenton, Ontario named Erie. Part of the purchase agreement was that they kept the Erie name. But Murata Erie in Trenton has been closed for years, and now its name is gone too.
Narda was bought by L3 Communications, but the name brand has been preserved.
Nurad's Microwave Division was sold off to NSI. Nurad was purchased by Chelton Microwave (a holding company that is part of Cobham PLC) in 1997. This business unit then purchased the Transco antenna line (still available for the most part). Chelton rolled this (and others) into Cobham, PLC. Nurad (dba Cobham Sensor Systems) is still located in Baltimore, MD, with many of the same people. It has legacy antennas and radomes on many existing airborne, sea, and ground-based platforms as well as newly developed products.
Olektron was sold to Signal Technology Corp., which became STC Microwave Systems when it was bought by Crane Co.
Omega Microwave was bought by STC Microwave Systems, a part of Crane Corp. since 2003.
Omni Spectra, once one of the world's most well-known microwave-connector companies, was gradually phased out of the M/A-COM product line when AMP bought M/A-COM (which later became Tyco). However, part of the original team from Omni Spectra (including Vince McHenry, James Cheal, and Jim Kubota) left M/A-COM and started anew, incorporating in 1981 as Southwest Microwave (Tempe, AZ). They are still working on high-end microwave and millimeter wave connectors. XMA Corp. (Manchester, NH) purchased many of the passive (M/A-COM) coaxial components from Tyco in 2003. The purchase included drawings, equipment, tooling, and the Omni Spectra brand name.
P&H Laboratories, the Simi Valley circulator and ferrite company named after Phyllis and Harold Saltzman, is long gone. But you can still view their catalog on the Renaissance web site. Renaissance Electronics purchased the assets of P&H Laboratories and MCCI Wireless in June 2003. It still manufactures most old P&H hardware to the P&H part number/drawings.
Pacific Monolithics was a "buzz" company of the 1990s founded by some ex-Hughes employees. In 1998, it was sold to Richardson, which still carries the PacMono torch. Richardson sells these older MESFET products and contracts out the wafer fab for them.
Pamtech (shortened from "passive microwave technology") was located in Camarillo, CA. Started by George F. Grund III in March 1976, it was a spinoff of E&M Labs of Westlake, CA after TRAK of Tampa, FL bought it. PAMTECH made isolators and circulators for over 30 years. It has now been acquired by Quinstar, Inc. (Torrance, CA), which will carry on making Pamtech components.
Penstock, Inc. (aka Pen-Stock for Peninsula Stocking Distributor, after the San Francisco Peninsula where it was located), was founded in the mid-1970s by Bruce White. It served as a stocking distributor for the low-cost leader, Mini-Circuits, and the high-cost leader, Avantek. Penstock morphed into one of the largest RF and microwave component distributors, acquiring Waltronic Sales (1988) and Sertek Sales (1995). Avnet acquired Penstock in 1994. It became RF & Microwave Group located in (South) San Jose, CA until it was shut down in 2003. Avnet also acquired Penstock Engineering, which became Avnet MTS "Microwave Technical Solutions" before it was sold to Teledyne Cougar in 2005.
Phase One Microwave went out of business sometime in the late 2000s. It appears to have now re-emerged as Wright Technologies in Roseville, CA.
Phoenix Microwave of Telford, PA was bought by Stellex Microwave, which was bought by Tyco and at last report spun off to M/A-COM.
Plano Microwave, spin off of UTL, was bought by Sierra Nevada Corp. in October 2002.
Plessey Microwave was purchased by Stratex in 2003.
Premier Microwave is part of Cobham DES.
Q-bit was bought by Remec in 1997. Spectrum Controls bought the Remec Components business unit in October 2004. In February 2005, Spectrum Control bought Amplifonix.
Radian Technologies is part of Spectrum Microwave.
Remec the company no longer exists. It de-listed itself from NASDAQ and liquidated everything. But Remec the nameplate lives on as part of Chelton. In July 2005, Chelton sold the Outdoor Unit and Transceiver business in Poway, CA to Wireless Holdings International for $15 million. That same month, it also sold Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) in Escondido, CA to Veritek and Samjor. In May 2005, it sold its Space and Defense group in San Diego, CA and Richardson, TX to Chelton, a part of Cobham plc, for $260 million. In March 2005, it sold part of the Wireless group to Powerwave Technologies for $118 million. In May 2004, Remec sold its Fixed Wireless Access Systems (FWA) unit to Axxcelera Broadband Wireless, Inc. It sold its Antenna and Artificial Intelligence (AI) -related assets to the owner of Optimal RF, a startup.
RFMW, Ltd. was founded by former Penstock employees. RFMW, Ltd. headquarters are located around the corner from the empty Avnet MTS "Microwave Technical Solutions" building.
RF Nitro (once a company involved in gallium nitride) is part of RF Micro Devices.
RHG Electronics Laboratory is now part of M/A-COM. RHG was a manufacturer of logarithmic amplifiers and mixers along with associated products. It started in Farmingdale, NY in 1960 and relocated to Deer Park, NY sometime after 1970, when it needed larger facilities. The "R" was for Arnold Rubin, the "H" was for Ron Hirsch, and Robert E. Gruber was the "G" in RHG. Don Neuf was one of its senior engineers. He is now with MITEQ along with Dave Krauthheimer and Bob Yurokso.
Robinson Labs' name was bought by Herley and retired in 2000. But the founders of Robinson Labs started a new company, RH Labs, essentially in the same Nashua, NH building. They are making the same hardware for RH Laboratories, Inc.
Rockwell International became Conexant, which spun off the GaAs (Newbury Park) portion of its fab to Skyworks (previously Alpha Industries). The other fabs became Jazz Semiconductor.
Rockwell Scientific is now part of Teledyne.
Rohm and Haas Electronics Materials in Blacksburg, VA invented a batch-manufacturing process for printing miniature, three-dimensional (3D) coaxial interconnects with air dielectric and low-loss copper under the DARPA 3D-MERFS Program. DOW Chemical bought the entire Rohm and Haas company in 2008. But the PolyStrata process is alive and well at spinoff Nuvotronics in Radford, VA, thanks to serial entrepreneurs David Sherrer and Noel Heiks.
Sage Laboratories, the company that has roots way back to the RadLab and WWII, was finally retired as a nameplate by Filtronic around December 2005.
Salisbury Engineering (Delmar, DE) is part of Spectrum Microwave.
Sanders Associates was bought by Lockheed at the time that it was closing the Electronics division in NJ. It was then sold to BAE Systems.
Satellite Transmission Systems (STS) is part of L3-Narda in Hauppauge, NY.
Scientific Devices, Inc. (SDI) became part of M/A-COM, then part of Cobham. SDI, a manufacturer of silicon diodes and solid-state switches, was owned by John Caruso. Most of the SDI people ended up at Frequency Sources' semiconductor division, which is now Microsemi Microwave Products. John Caruso is the President of this division. SDI started out as Crown Microwave. It merged with Microwave Semiconductor Corp. (MSC), which was later acquired by Siemens. After a while, John and others bought the Billerica group and named it Scientific Devices, Inc. SDI was bought by Adams Russell, which was then acquired by M/A-COM.
Scrantom was acquired by Natel in 2003. Scrantom (Costa Mesa CA) is still a player in low-temperature co-fired-ceramic (LTCC) technology.
Semflex, a manufacturer of flexible microwave coaxial cable and custom cable assemblies based in Mesa, AZ, was purchased in 1994 by Sterling Holdings (owner of Trompeter Electronics). Sterling Holdings merged with Stratos Optical in 2003. The consolidated business was purchased by Emerson Connectivity Solutions, a division of Emerson Electric, in 2007. Semflex is still co-located in Mesa, AZ with Trompeter Electronics.
Sierra Microwave started out in Sacramento in 1984 making circulators, isolators, filters, PIN-diode components, and amplifiers. It is now owned by HEICO (Georgetown, TX) and still trading, but it dropped the amplifier line before moving. That amplifier product line was key to the formation of Milliwave, as previously mentioned under Avantek.
SiGe Semiconductor was bought out by Skyworks in 2011.
Silicon Wave (San Diego Sorrento Valley area) was sold to RFMD. Many of the engineering team spread out to Staccato Communications, RF Magic, Quorum Systems, MaxLinear, and Sequoia Communications.
Sirenza is now RFMD. Sirenza was originally called Stanford Microdevices; the name change was due to a lawsuit with Stanford University. Founder John Ocampo later pulled together Mimix Broadband and one of the original pieces of M/A-COM to launch M/A-COM Technology Solutions.
Spectrum Microwave is a wholly owned business of Spectrum Controls and consists of:
FSY Microwave, located in Columbia, MD.
Salisbury Engineering, located in Delmar, DE.
Remec, Magnum, and Radian, located in Palm Bay, FL.
Amplifonix, located in Philadelphia, PA.
All locations remain physically where they were located before acquisitions. Q-bit parts are (for the most part) still available, as are the parts from the other divisions.
Sperry Microwave moved its plant from Oldsmar to Clearwater, FL, where it was operated by Unisys for a short time before it was sold to Hercules for several years. Hercules was, and is, primarily a manufacturer of explosives.
Stellex, bankrupted in 2001, became part of M/A-COM, which was part of Tyco, and then became part of Cobham, PLC.
Stratex was purchased by Harris in 2005. Harris Stratex would later become Aviat.
Sumitomo Electric is now part of Eudyna.
Switchline went to K&L Microwave.
Systron Donner was bought by STC Microwave Systems, a part of Crane Corp. since 2003.
Test Quality Company (TQC) was founded around 1986 by former members of HP Instrument Division's Neely Sales Office in Palo Alto, CA. They changed the name to Symmetrix Software around 1989-1990. They later opened an Austin, TX sales office. In 1991-1992, they disbanded the Santa Clara office and kept the Texas office. Later, they changed the name to Symtx.
Texas Instruments' Defense Systems Equipment Group was sold to Raytheon. The GaAs chip house became part of TriQuint when Raytheon was not able to convince Congress that owning three GaAs fabs (including the former Hughes GaAs operations) would not affect defense-electronics competition. TI continues today as a leading supplier of analog and data components, recently acquiring National Semiconductor.
Transco Products, Inc. started in 1942. By the early 1970s, it was based in Venice, CA, close to Marina Del Rey. In the late 1970s, it moved to Camarillo, CA and become Datron/Transco, Inc. The Transco switch line was then acquired by K&L Microwave. By the mid-1990s, K&L/Transco acquired Dow-Key Microwave. All production was transferred to the Dow-Key facility in Ventura around 1996. Transco/Datron became Datron Advanced Technologies in 2001. It was acquired by L-3 Communications in 2005. Dow-Key remains part of the Dover Ceramic & Microwave Products (CMP) group.
Triangle Microwave (East Hanover, NJ) was bought by KDI, which later became partners with Aeroflex.
TRW Microwave was sold to Frequency Electronics in Mitchell Field, NY in the late 1980s or early 1990s. FEI changed its name to FEI Microwave. TRW's GaAs foundry became Velocium, which was bought by Northrop Grumman and remains open at Redondo Beach, CA. TRW Semiconductors was sold to Motorola.
Unitrode (Watertown MA), a PIN-diode manufacturer, was bought by Microsemi some years ago.
Varian Associates' (Palo Alto, CA) vacuum-electronics group is now Communication and Power Industries, Inc. (CPI). The M/A-COM radar products group that was bought by Varian also is now part of CPI. Varian Microwave (Beverly, MA) was bought by STMicroelectronics. Varian continues to this day as three separate public companies: Varian, Inc., Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc., and Varian Medical Systems, Inc.
Vectronics Microwave Corp. was acquired by Micronetics.
The Velocium product line, which is now part of Hittite's catalog, is produced at Northrop's Redondo Beach fab.
Waltronic Sales was one of the first stocking distributors for Omni-Spectra connectors in the early 1960s. It was acquired by Penstock, later to be bought by Avnet.
Watkins-Johnson Co. microwave components was sold to Stellex. Another piece of WJ became part of Endwave. Stellex declared bankruptcy in 2001 and was sold to Tyco (M/A-COM). WJ Communications carried on the name until March 2008, when TriQuint acquired Watkins-Johnson's MMIC line. TriQuint part numbers starting with AG and EC (DC-to-6-GHz HBT amplifiers) are the legacy WJ products.
WaveBand was acquired by Sierra Nevada Corp. in May 2005.
Webb Ferrite was formed in the 1950s by Bob Webb, who sold out to Farinon Electric in 1977. Harris Corp. purchased Farinon in 1981. But the original ferrite business was sold out to M2 Global in 1999.
Weinschel is part of Aeroflex.
Western Microwave was bought by STC Microwave Systems, a part of Crane Corp. since 2003.
Westinghouse Microwave (Baltimore area) is now part of Northrop Grumman.
Wheeler Labs Antenna Group is part of BAE Systems in Greenlawn, NY.
Wiltron was acquired by Anritsu.
WiseWave was acquired by Ducommun.
YIG-TEK was bought by Signal Technology.
Zeta Laboratories, Inc. of Santa Clara, CA is now DRS Technologies (DRS Signal Solutions - West) in Morgan Hill, CA.