Murrietta Circuits, one of Orange County’s oldest technology companies, believes a new licensed technology will dramatically improve its process for manufacturing circuit boards, positioning the 35-year-old family-run business for growth in a declining U.S. industry.
The company’s 50,000-square-foot headquarters in Anaheim is one of only two manufacturing plants in the U.S. to feature eSurface Technologies’ new line of circuit board fabrication technology that’s billed as one of the biggest advancements in the sector in decades.
The technology, licensed from Carlsbad-based eSurface, reduces manufacturing time, allows for circuit boards to be designed and created in any shape, and uses nonharmful materials—all significant benefits considering that as much as 50% of circuit board materials are lost in the manufacturing process and that the demand to produce tiny components to meet the shrinking size of electronics has never been greater.
“We believe that being an early adopter can give us a significant growth opportunity,” said Chief Executive Andrew Murrietta, whose father Albert established the company in 1980 in Anaheim.
The company specializes in high-reliability circuit boards for the aerospace, military and medical industries.
Its customers include Raytheon, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman and L-3 Communications, and its boards are carried in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and Boeing’s P-8A Poseidon aircraft designed for long-range anti-submarine warfare, as well as missiles, weapons and other guided munition programs.
The circuit board maker, which has estimated annual sales of $10 million and has about 75 workers, hopes the new manufacturing technique drives more business back to the U.S.
“We can bring some of this manufacturing back from offshore,” Murrietta said. “This industry has shrunk quite a bit over the years.”
There were some 2,000 circuit board shops in the U.S. as recently as 15 years ago generating revenue of more than $11 billion. Only 200 exists today, with combined revenue of about $4 billion.
NextVR at Red’s Booth
Laguna Beach startup NextVR created a virtual reality experience of Red Digital Cinema’s booth at last week’s National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas, linking up the feed with the Irvine-based company’s stores in Los Angeles and New York, and offices in the U.K., Germany, India and China.
The inside look was the industry’s first live VR broadcast to multiple global locations.
NextVR cofounder DJ Roller worked closely with Red Digital for several years to hone key aspects of the technology when he ran Next3D, a predecessor company, and Liquid Pictures in Atlanta.
NextVR, which last year inked the first VR content deal in a partnership with Oculus and Samsung, uses Red’s 4K digital still and motion cameras to shoot some of its footage.
Broadcom Buy?
Chatter is picking up on Wall Street that Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. could be a takeover target for Santa Clara-based Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker.
Speculation grew after Intel reportedly broke off talks to acquire San Jose-based Altera Corp., which specializes in super-speedy computing processing chips known as field-programmable gate arrays, or FPGAs. Broadcom, the market leader in Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and RF connectivity chips featured in several Samsung and Apple smartphones, would complement Intel’s vast chip offerings.
Broadcom, which had a recent market value of $26.4 billion—twice the value of Altera—would demand a buyout price in the $30 billion range, according to analysts.
Its planned 1-million-square-foot headquarters in the Great Park Neighborhoods could also play a factor.
Broadcom declined to comment.
