AVX Limited, 5 Hillmans Way, Coleraine, BT52 2DA Tel: (028) 7034 4188 Fax: (028) 7035 5527 www.avxcorp.com AVX LIMITED Page 1 of 8 AVX Limited, 5 Hillmans Way, Coleraine, BT52 2DA Tel: (028) 7034 4188 Fax: (028) 7035 5527 www.avxcorp.com LIMITED is the European subsidiary of the American A KYOCERA GROUP COMPANY based AVX Corporation, which is the world’s leading supplier of electronic components For more than forty years, AVX has been involved in the research, development and manufacture of ceramic based components for the electronics industry and is now one of the most successful components manufacturers in the world. The AVX product portfolio to includes: Tantalum capacitors, where it is now the largest supplier worldwide with 40% market share. Connectors Power Capacitors Timing devices Specialized Military and Space products. Supplying a complete spectrum of passive and interconnection products to just about every major electronics company, AVX has a global turnover in excess of US $ 1300M. As a respected part of the highly successful Kyocera Group of Companies, AVX Limited has complete responsibility for the marketing of AVX; Kyocera; Elco and Thompson brands throughout Europe. Working to establish an excellent reputation for providing high quality products, AVX seeks to develop interactive relationships and regularly consults with customers to help forge the link between R&D and the real world market place. More formal partnerships also exist to move forward the technology development process, the aim being to deliver new products into the market place and reduce the total procurement costs to the benefit of all. AVX products are used in virtually every electronics based product manufactured today. From computing through telecoms to the automotive and aerospace industries, there is virtually no major manufacturer with whom we do not trade. Page 2 of 8 AVX Limited, 5 Hillmans Way, Coleraine, BT52 2DA Tel: (028) 7034 4188 Fax: (028) 7035 5527 www.avxcorp.com CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS Greenville, South Carolina AMERICAN SALES OFFICES Myrtle Beach Washington California Ontario Maine Brazil Texas Minnesota Arizona Indiana EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS Fleet, Hampshire, England EUROPEAN SALES OFFICES Fleet Jerusalem Lanskroun Munich Paris Rome Milan ASIAN HEADQUARTERS Singapore ASIAN SALES OFFICES Singapore China Hong Kong Malaysia Korea Taiwan GLOBAL MANUFACTURING China Israel Germany Mexico England Czech Republic El Salvador Japan Korea Malaysia Northern Ireland Singapore Page 3 of 8 USA AVX Limited, 5 Hillmans Way, Coleraine, BT52 2DA Tel: (028) 7034 4188 Fax: (028) 7035 5527 www.avxcorp.com A BRIEF HISTORY 1922 Radiola Wireless Corporation was born in a tiny shop on 17th Street in New Coleraine Coleraine & Larne, Northern Ireland Lanskroun, Czech Republic Biddeford, USA Olean, USA Paignton, UK Newmarket, UK Raleigh, USA Nagano, Japan Shiga, Yokohama, Kagoshima, Myrtle Beach, USA Vancouver, USA Sun Valley Chihuahua, Mexico Korea Shanghai, China El Salvador Singapore Betzdorf, Germany Israel Batam, Indonesia York City. 1924 The founders of the Radiola Wireless Corporation sold the name “Radiola” to a set manufacturer and coined the name “Aerovox” which means ‘voice of the air’. 1948 Electrical Reactance started operations in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. 1949 Aerovox acquires Electrical Reactance as a Ceramic Capacitor manufacturing subsidiary. 1961 Multi-Layer Ceramic (MLC) capacitor technology becomes established. 1972 AVX Corporation was incorporated on 24th April 1972 manufacturing MultiLayer Ceramic capacitors as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Aerovox Corporation. 1976 AVX Limited formed to meet European market needs. Page 4 of 8 AVX Limited, 5 Hillmans Way, Coleraine, BT52 2DA Tel: (028) 7034 4188 Fax: (028) 7035 5527 www.avxcorp.com 1977 El Salvador; San Salvador manufacturing facility starts production. 1978 AVX Limited opens its first manufacturing facility in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. 1983 Juarez, Mexico manufacturing facility starts production. 1987 AVX expands its product line to include ‘Tantalum’ and ‘Glass’ capacitors by acquiring the Tantalum operations of STC, and the Glass capacitor operations of the Corning Glass Works. 1990 AVX Corporation merges with the “Kyocera Corporation”, a Japanese conglomerate manufacturer of a wide range of high technology products including ceramic cutting tools, thermal print heads, heating elements, resistors and solar cells, amongst many others. 1996 AVX Limited announces a £46 million investment to expand production at its Coleraine facility. This provided a materials development suite and a suite of clean-room facilities using latest clean-room technology. 1997 Another European manufacturing facility opens in Uherske Hradiste in the Czech Republic as a satellite division of the Coleraine facility. Concentrating on the ‘Testing’ and ‘Packing’ operations previously based in Coleraine this development reduced the overall manufacturing costs and enables the Coleraine facility to concentrate on the fabrication processes and development of new more added value products. Page 5 of 8 AVX Limited, 5 Hillmans Way, Coleraine, BT52 2DA Tel: (028) 7034 4188 Fax: (028) 7035 5527 www.avxcorp.com MARKETS TELECOMMUNICATIONS For many years AVX has provided the backbone of technological support for the burgeoning telecoms market. As technologies moved from analogue to digital our fast developing expertise in passive components has helped provide reliable and cost effective telecommunications to both business and the family. Sophisticated mobile telephony, fast and secure PABX’s and a myriad of networking products are all now well within reach. From the newest satellite telephones to the most complex telephone exchanges, the reliability of AVX’s components help to ensure direct, immediate communication – guaranteed!! COMPUTING Computing serves the needs of many in the world today. Entire ICT strategies rely upon the thousands of capacitors, resistors, fuses, timing devices and connectors that contribute to the reliable operation of the modern PC. The Company accounts running solely on computer, the business executive on the move, a teaching aid in the classroom or at home, all of our lives in one way or another are enhanced by computing. AUTOMOTIVE Almost everything we buy is reliant upon automotive transport – for the transport of fresh food from farm to market; business people to meetings; expectant mothers to hospital. The modern engine must be economical and environmentally friendly – only possible through superb digital electronics and reliable components. Nobody wants an accident to happen, but if it does happen, safety devices such as the airbag and anti-lock brake systems (ABS) save lives. Microelectronics waiting to function – The accident happens – The electronics function. – The life is saved. Page 6 of 8 AVX Limited, 5 Hillmans Way, Coleraine, BT52 2DA Tel: (028) 7034 4188 Fax: (028) 7035 5527 www.avxcorp.com AEROSPACE & DEFENCE With some of the highest specifications of all markets, the Aerospace & Defence industries provide some of the greatest challenges for AVX. Mission critical equipment subjected to extremely high speed, incredible acceleration, severe vibration and extreme temperatures – the cost of component failure is almost incalculable. Satellites and space travel are no longer futuristic concepts, but in the big money world of today’s launches there is no room for failure. ‘Ariane’ uses 1,000’s of advanced capacitors from AVX – each one critical in its operation. MEDICAL;INDUSTRIAL INSTRUMENTATION AND CONSUMER Involvement in almost every part of the Medical; Industrial instrumentation and Consumer market place is assured by AVX’s superb reputation with components in everything from televisions and camcorders; processing equipment and scientific instrumentation to hand-held games consoles. Helping improve the quality of life through miniaturisation and reliability enhancement, AVX components are found in the enormous range of micro-health appliances that can be used to benefit life in just about any environment. Unobtrusive hearing aids and heart monitoring devices demonstrate supreme reliability in diverse medical applications where many of us take the idea of supreme electronic component reliability for granted. Coleraine Facility The Coleraine facility manufactures multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC) and services the global market. The plant works 24x7 over 52 weeks and employs 320 people. In recent years we have moved from a high volume low value manufacturer to both developing and producing high value parts which provide value add to our customer base. Key to this business strategy is developing the next generation range of capacitors which involves developing and advancing our material set and dielectric performance and evaluating how we can deliver reliability and improved performance to our end customers. Product Development The goal of our development team is to support the business strategy in developing new parts to a stage where they can be transferred to production and to grow and develop knowledge so that we are continually improving our customer offer. Key to this plan is our partnership with NIBEC and the University of Ulster. We currently have ?? development programmes on-going with a further ?? in the pipeline. We have ? research Associates working on current projects and plan to increase this by a further 9 over the coming year as new projects come on line. Page 7 of 8 AVX Limited, 5 Hillmans Way, Coleraine, BT52 2DA Tel: (028) 7034 4188 Fax: (028) 7035 5527 www.avxcorp.com We have seen good success in the past 4 years with the development of new material compositions and processing methods which have improved our product performance. Our aim is to continue to build on this knowledge base and to increase our technical capability both within the development team and in our engineering team who manage the process on a daily basis. We align our plans with Product Managers who and the corporate marketing team to identify gaps and needs in the sectors and with the customers we supply. It is a challenging market with a number of major competitors but it is rewarding as we have seen a number of products reach the market and deliver sales and profit to the business. We are inventing the future. Our focus is to keep pace or ahead of the competition in our product offer, while developing our employees’ knowledge and capabilities which will deliver a strong future for AVX Coleraine. Page 8 of 8