American Superconductor Acquires Integrated Electronics

American Superconductor (Westborough, MA) has acquired the assets of Integrated Electronics LLC (Milwaukee, WI) in exchange for shares of American Superconductor private stock and cash valued in aggregate at approximately $2.0 million. Integrated Electronics designs, develops and manufactures power electronic converters that utilize state-of-the-art power semiconductors.Integrated Electronics has been one of American's co-developers and suppliers of advanced power electronic converter modules for use in the company's superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) product line. Power electronic converters are key components in SMES systems. American anticipates installing over 1,000 of the new power electronic modules in its SMES product line during the next two years."Integrated Electronics considerably strengthens our internal power electronics technology base," said Greg Yurek, CEO of American Superconductor. "This acquisition allows us to enhance the economics of our SMES business today and opens the door to additional revenue growth through the application of this advanced power electronics technology in other market segments.""The new power converter modules we have co-developed with American Superconductor have the highest power density at the lowest cost of anything on the market today for handling power over 100 kilowatts," commented Jeff Reichard, an owner and chief executive of Integrated Electronics. "We have jointly mapped out a path to higher-power, lower-cost modules that I believe will give us an additional competitive advantage in the market for converters."The company's future applications of its power electronic products may include electric motor devices; transportation systems such as locomotive, ships, electric or hybrid electric vehicles; distributed generating equipment, including fuel cells and micro-turbines; and energy storage applications such as flywheels and batteries."We plan to extend our power electronics technology base as we bring these new products into other market segments where power technologies are key," said Yurek.