Not all Business news is bad.

Feeling down about recent news? The following items should cheer you up or at least make you consider life goes on. While financial news continued to dominate the headlines it was nice to see the majority of press releases from companies in the RF/microwave space tended back to the tangibles – good old (well, actually new) fashioned hardware! Plenty of new products with impressive performance and less complexity than a credit default swap (whatever that is). Not to mention new business wins and other impressive milestones met.

Skyworks announced that the company had roughly doubled its year-over-year Smart Phone FEM shipments since 2004, with over 40 million units sold in fiscal 2008 alone. The company displayed bullishness that seems to be in short supply these days in the business world when announcing their success riding the steep growth trajectory of the rapidly emerging Smart Phone segment through their Intera™ portfolio of innovative front-end modules (FEM).

Triquint Semiconductor also had good news to crow about when they announced that the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has awarded TriQuint a 21-month, $4.5 M contract to advance manufacturing methods used to produce high power, high frequency gallium arsenide (GaAs) amplifiers. TriQuint was chosen based on its experience developing high performance, high reliability amplifiers for a wide range of defense and aerospace applications.

NEC Corp. has reported that shipments of its ultra-compact microwave communications system, PASOLINK, have surpassed more than 1 million total units. The 200,000 shipments figure was reached in 2004, following approximately 20 years of availability, and the system soon eclipsed 500,000 total units in February 2007. Most recently, shipments to mobile telephone carriers in such markets as Asia and the Middle East, where rapid economic expansion has taken place, have contributed significantly to PASOLINK breaking through the 1 million unit mark.

Internationally, Ericsson has signed a sole-supplier agreement with Digicel Group for the nationwide deployment of a GSM/EDGE network in Panama. Motorola has signed a multi-year WiMAX contract with wi-tribe Pakistan limited, a joint venture between Qatar Telecom (Qtel) and Saudi Arabia’s A.A. Turki Group of Companies (ATCO). The company will supply infrastructure and a comprehensive services package that will enable cost-effective, wireless broadband services for wi-tribe’s customers. Via this system wi-tribe aims to deliver instant wireless broadband connectivity from North Africa across the Middle East and up to Asia. And a little closer to home, EADS Defence & Security has announced a major expansion plan to make PlantCML in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, its North American R&D and top-level technological support centre for the large-scale SN P25 public safety and security digital communications systems market. SN P25 systems permit the seamless integration of multiple first responder services into one shared communications and data-sharing secure network.

Product news included the announcement that Parker Hannifin Corp., a leader in motion and control technologies, has intorduced a new multi-planar EMI shielding gasket in convenient strip form. SOFT-SHIELD® 4850 provides shielding for consumer and commercial electronics, telecom and information technology applications such as backplanes, I/O panels, and access panel cabinet seals.

ANADIGICS Inc. announced that the company is delivering HELP2™ power amplifiers (Pas) to LG Electronics for its new 3G Vu™ mobile device currently available through AT&T. The LG Vu is one of the first touch screen devices to support AT&T Mobile TV, allowing users to view live streaming TV shows right in the palm of their hand on a 3” display. The ultra slim design offers a 2.0 megapixel camera with zoom, music player, messaging, mobile e-mail and web browsing abilities. This 3G handset claims to deliver significantly longer talk time by utilizing the power-saving features of ANADIGICS HELP2 technology.

Also in the power device world, Microsemi Corp., a manufacturer of high performance analog/mixed signal integrated circuits and high reliability semiconductors, announced its first two RF power transistors utilizing silicon carbide technology for high power VHF and UHF band pulsed radar applications. These RF power transistors utilize state-of-the-art silicon carbide technology designed for VHF - 150 to 160 MHz, and UHF - 406 to 450 MHz, respectively. These high performance, common gate, class AB, high power transistors offer the industry’s highest power output, typical 1400 W at VHF and 1100 W at UHF of peak power in compact single-ended packages.

Exhibiting its RO4000 and RO3000 laminates and other advanced materials at the Taiwan Printed Circuit Assembly show (TPCA) 2008 to be held at the Nangang Exhibition Hall in Taipei, Taiwan on October 22-24 was the news out of Rogers Corporation this week. Rogers will also display several of its highly effective thermal management solutions, including COOLSPAN™ and HEATWAVE™ materials