CTS Corporation Establishes RF Integrated Modules Business
22 December 1999
CTS Corporation Establishes RF Integrated Modules Business
ELKHART, Ind.--Dec. 21, 1999--CTS Corporation's February 26, 1999, acquisition of Motorola's Components Products Division, renamed CTS Wireless Components, has created significant growth opportunities for CTS in the communications equipment market. As North America's largest wireless components manufacturer, CTS currently services the cellular handset industry with a number of electronic components. These include temperature compensated crystal oscillators, crystal filters, surface acoustic wave filters, ceramic filters, ceramic duplexers and voltage controlled oscillators.The customer base that Wireless Components serves now presents CTS an additional outstanding opportunity to achieve profitable growth in an emerging new product area--high frequency modules used in cellular handset phones. Driven by the industry's requirement to produce smaller, more complex handsets, in shorter lead times, CTS will expand its product line to include RF integrated modules. These modules will offer the handset manufacturer higher functionality, lower part count, smaller profile and reduced time to market as compared to discrete components.
RF integrated modules will best benefit highly complex and miniaturized radios including multi-band and multi-mode cellular phones. It is this segment that is expected to see the highest growth within the digital CDMA, TDMA and GSM cellular phone markets. The Bluetooth radio, predicted to grow faster than the cellular phone market as it ramps to 126 million units by 2002, (Cahners In-Stat, Scottsdale, Arizona) will benefit from CTS' RF integrated module technology as well.
Effective January 1, 2000, CTS is creating a new business to take advantage of the opportunity. The new CTS business will be named RF Integrated Modules and will become part of the Wireless Group. "CTS is in a position to capture significant share of this emerging market due to its unique mix of products, technologies and strong customer base," said Joseph Walker, CTS Chairman, President and CEO. "By combining CTS Wireless Components' products and existing CTS Microelectronics' manufacturing capabilities, CTS will be able to offer complete RF sections of a cellular phone as an integrated module," Walker continued.
The new business will place major product emphasis on integrated modules. CTS' West Lafayette, Indiana; Singapore, Republic of Singapore; and Chung-Li City, Taiwan, facilities will receive significant capital investment to advance manufacturing capabilities and boost capacity for RF integrated modules. CTS Microelectronics, West Lafayette, Indiana, will be renamed CTS RF Integrated Modules, and the name CTS Microelectronics will be dropped. CTS RF Integrated Modules will be headed by Bing Harding, CTS Group Vice President, reporting to Phil Semprevio, Executive Vice President and General Manager, CTS Wireless Components.
CTS Corporation designs, manufactures and sells a broad line of electronic components and custom electronic assemblies for OEM customers primarily in the communications equipment, automotive and computer equipment markets worldwide. CTS operates manufacturing facilities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Scotland, Singapore, Taiwan and China. For additional information, visit our website at www.ctscorp.com.