AVX Corporation has completed their purchase of Ethertronics Inc., a manufacturer of passive and active Isolated Magnetic Dipole™ (IMD) antenna systems for wireless applications across the mobile phone, aerospace, WiFi, defense, IoT and markets.

IMD antennas are extremely efficient, insensitive to changes in ground planes and local interference, and have a unique design that offers users the flexibility to tune for multiple frequencies in confined spaces and to actively tune for both radiation pattern coverage and frequency.

This January, Ethertronics earned an Electronic Products 2017 Product of the Year Award for their groundbreaking 802.11ax WiFi Active Steering™ System, which doubles WiFi performance and range with the combination of a steering processor and antenna switch and provides critical scalability for next-generation 802.11ax applications. The EC477 Active Steering Processor enables radio link optimization on a per-antenna, per-client, per-packet basis, supports up to 8x8 MIMO antenna configurations and combines signals to achieve up to 3dB additional gain of the radio link.

The EC624 Active Steering Switch acts as a slave device to the steering processor, selecting the desired beam pattern of an active antenna on a moment-by-moment basis to keep the radiation pattern on target. Both devices use a data-over-coax signaling scheme that allows the devices to interact with both the antennas and each other over the same cable that carries the RF signal, eliminating the need for additional cabling and custom connectors and reducing costs compared to other MIMO configurations.

With its purchase of Ethertronics, AVX acquired more than 200 patents; R&D, manufacturing, and sales facilities in six locations: China, South Korea, Vietnam, France, Taiwan, and the Americas; and approximately 700 employees, 120 of whom are actively engaged in product development, representing a strong focus on R&D that is further supported by the company’s $90 million of revenue earned in calendar year 2017.