Irvine’s Microsemi Corp., a maker of chips for military, aerospace and industrial uses, nabbed a $22 million government contract earlier this month for products used in global positioning systems.
Microsemi is set to make customized circuit boards loaded with chips that prevent tampering for the military.
They will be used in missile guidance systems, secure radio communications and precision-guided weapons designed with GPS features.
The anti-tamper features help prevent reverse engineering and other covert methods that could be used to gain access to sensitive data, the company said.
The design win stems from Microsemi’s April buy of Phoenix chipmaker White Electronic Designs Corp. for $100 million.
“We are pleased with this production contract won by our newly acquired division,” Chief Executive Jim Peterson said. “The addition of this technology allows us to increase our presence in the military market with systems of higher complexity.”
White Electronic assembles and tests chips primarily used by the military. It specializes in an anti-tamper technology that’s built into GPS-guided weapons deployed in Afghanistan.
Analysts like the idea of Microsemi be-coming an expert in anti-tamper technology.
“We view the production order as positive for Microsemi and consistent with its strategy of being the consolidator in the high-reliability electronics market,” said Tore Svanberg, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore. “We are getting incrementally more positive on this opportunity as we believe this initial order was recognized quicker than original estimates and may lead to a bigger market opportunity that includes not only military platforms, but also secure radio communications, laptop computers and any other device requiring an anti-tampering security feature.”
Svanberg has a “buy” rating on Microsemi’s shares and a $24 price target.
Microsemi, the county’s third-biggest chipmaker, had a recent market value of $1.3 billion.
Western Digital Promotion
Western Digital Corp.’s Michael Ray, who was honored last month at the Business Journal’s inaugural General Counsel Awards, is set to be promoted in October when a longtime executive retires.
Ray, who’s currently vice president of le- gal services, will succeed Raymond Bukaty as vice president, general counsel and secre- tary at the Lake Forest-based maker of disk drives.
In his new role, Ray will head the company’s legal and risk management groups and support Western Digital’s patent protection efforts.
He also will head the company’s compliance obligations and advise managers and the board.
Ray has played a big role in the integration of acquisitions.
In 2007, he had a hand in Western Digital’s $1 billion buy of San Jose’s Komag Inc., which makes thin-film metal disks, the part of a drive that stores data.
The deal—Western Digital’s biggest to date—was critical to the company’s strategy of being able to make the entire disk drive, or almost all of it, on its own.
Ray, 42, is a Boston native who lives in Huntington Beach.
After graduating from Harvard Law School, Ray was recruited to O’Melveny & Myers LLP in Newport Beach.
He left private practice to clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Linda McLaughlin in Santa Ana.
Ray describes his clerkship for McLaughlin, who died in 1999, as “one of the best years in my life.”
Startup Contract
Irvine chip startup WiSpry Inc. recently landed a role in a four-year, $8 million contract to improve cell phone technology for the Danish government.
Along with other electronics companies, WiSpry is set to work on what’s called the “smart antenna front-end project” to develop tun-able antennas based on WiSpry’s chip technology.
WiSpry will work closely with Denmark’s Aalborg University, antenna specialist Molex Inc. of Illinois and German chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG.
The research project aims to shrink the size and cost of cell phones and boost their battery life and antenna range.
WiSpry’s chips help extend the battery life of cell phones and allow them to have fewer dropped calls.
The company has had its chips in production for about a year. It hasn’t disclosed its wireless phone maker customers, but is ramping up production this year.
WiSpry is one of the best-funded local tech startups, with some $50 million raised to date.
Clarification
TW Telecom Inc., which was called out in last week’s bits and pieces section of my column, is a former—not current—unit of Time Warner Inc.
The telecom service provider has been a separate entity since the late 1990s and changed its name to TW Telecom in 2008.
