Teradyne and Taconic Announce Joint Manufacturing Agreement; Alliance positions Taconic on the technology roadmap for high-speed digital applications

LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 26, 2002--Taconic and Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER) Connection Systems Division (TCS), a leading provider of high performance interconnect and electronic manufacturing services today announced their agreement to co-manufacture and market Taconic's patent-pending TacPreg material for large format PWB applications at both Teradyne's La Verne, California facility and Taconic's plants in Petersburgh, New York and Mullingar, Ireland.

"This agreement takes advantage of Teradyne's unique competences in high layer count, large format PWB fabrication and epoxy-coating," said Tom Pursch, vice president of Teradyne Connection Systems. "In the race to deliver more bandwidth, Teradyne's technology leadership in high-speed, high-density interconnect, including our GbX(TM) and VHDM-HSD(TM) platforms, combined with high performance PWB materials provides a complete system solution for our customers."

Taconic Co-CEO Jim O'Keefe remarked, "this alliance with Teradyne allows Taconic to rapidly translate its substantial microwave laminate position into a visible location on the technology roadmap for high-speed digital applications. TacPreg enables the manufacture of dimensionally stable 20+layer printed wiring boards since the high temperature PTFE/ceramic composite shows little movement at conventional printed circuit board press cycles."

TacPreg has a dissipation factor less than .005 at 10 GHz yielding exceptional low loss signal integrity for high-speed digital circuitry. The distinguishing attribute of this patent-pending material is the ability to laminate and cure in standard printed circuit board cycles and obtain peel strengths that meet or exceed industry standards. Based on the same chemistry as Taconic laminate material, engineers can now design an electrically consistent low loss pure package throughout the board construction.

About Taconic

Taconic manufactures TacLam, ORCER, and TacPreg circuit board materials for microwave frequency and high-speed digital applications. The product offerings range in dielectric constants from 2.17 to 10. Laminate lengths up to 106" (2.7m) are supplied. For more information, please contact: In Asia: Mr. Lim at Korea Taconic Co., P: [phone], email: [e-mail]; in Europe: Mr. Manfred Huschka at Taconic International, LTD, Ireland, P: [phone], email: [e-mail], and in USA: Mr. Robert Nurmi at Taconic, NY: [phone], email: [e-mail].

About Teradyne Connection Systems

Teradyne Connection Systems (TCS), a division of Boston-based Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE: TER), provides high performance system solutions to industry leading OEMs, with printed circuit boards, high-speed, high-density connectors, multi-gigabit backplane assemblies and complete systems integration and test. Teradyne's high-technology components and electronic manufacturing services are used by manufacturers of communications and computing systems central to building networking infrastructure. TCS manufactures in North America, Ireland, Mexico and China. For more information visit http://www.teradyne.com/tcs.

“This agreement takes advantage of Teradyne's unique competences in high layer count, large format PWB fabrication and epoxy-coating”