Irvine’s Solarflare Communications Inc., one of the county’s best-funded chip startups, has struck a partnership with Fujitsu Frontech North America Inc., a Foothill Ranch-based unit of Japan’s Fujitsu Ltd.
Under the pact, Fujitsu Frontech is set to sell Solarflare’s networking chips and circuit boards through its network of distributors, resellers and system integrators.
Solarflare’s products help bridge older data networks to newer, faster ones.
Financial details of the Fujitsu pact weren’t disclosed.
The partnership could help Solarflare pick up business in markets it shares with Fujitsu, such as high-performance computing, high-frequency trading and cloud networking.
Fujitsu offers a variety of products including point of sales terminals, self-checkout systems, kiosks, currency dispensers, networking, media and biometric equipment and radio-frequency identification tags.
Solarflare, which has raised an estimated $210 million in various types of funding, expects to turn a profit this year.
Last year the company changed tack and started selling its data networking circuit boards to finance companies.
That was a shift from Solarflare’s initial strategy to sell chips to server makers.
Solarflare sells its boards to banks, hedge fund operators, stock exchanges, brokerages and other financial institutions.
Kingston Caper
Three men were arrested in India for selling counterfeit flash drive pens branded as Fountain Valley’s Kingston Technology Co., the top maker of memory products for computers.
Investigations led to three raids in New Dehli and its underground shopping markets, where police seized more than 450 pen drives and memory cards, according to reports from India.
The raid came after police received a complaint from a Kingston representative in the area.
Police said the fakes had logos that easily could be scratched off. They were made in bulk and distributed throughout New Delhi, selling for about a third of the price of the real thing.
Kingston didn’t respond for comment.
The company posted 2010 sales of $6.5 billion, up from $4.1 billion in 2009.
The sales record made Kingston the biggest private company in Orange County, leapfrogging Newport Beach’s Pacific Life Insurance Co., which reported $5.6 billion in 2010 revenue.
Privately held Kingston has some 800 workers here.
Multi-Fineline Board Moves
Anaheim’s Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc., a maker of flexible printed circuit boards for cell phones and other mobile devices, has appointed a new chairman and a director.
Philippe Lemaitre, who has served as an independent director for the past two years, was tapped by Multi-Fineline to be chairman.
He replaces Philip Harding, who’s retiring after seven years as chairman. Harding was the company’s chief executive from 1988 to 2008.
“In my new role as chairman, I look forward to working with my talented colleagues to achieve our vision of profitable growth and maximizing shareholder value,” Lemaitre said.
Since 2007, Lemaitre has served as a director of Sun Hydraulics Corp., a Florida maker of hydraulic cartridge valves and manifolds.
He is the former chief executive of Woodhead Industries, a maker of electrical products that’s part of Molex Inc. of Illinois.
Lemaitre holds a civil engineering degree from Ecole Speciale des Travaux Publics in Paris and a master’s in engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Kheng-Joo Khaw, a former chief executive of two publicly traded technology companies in Asia, was elected as a Multi-Fineline director.
Khaw serves on the board of Singapore Airport Terminal Service Ltd.
A 26-year veteran at Hewlett-Packard Co., Khaw has served on the boards of Total Automation Ltd., Amtek Engineering Ltd. and Senoko Power, all of Singapore.
He holds a business master’s from Santa Clara University, and a bachelor’s in electronic and computer engineering from Oregon State University.
Singapore electronics maker WBL Corp. owns about 60% of Multi-Fineline’s publicly traded shares.
