Merix Corporation was an American

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB), also called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...

(PCB) manufacturer based in

Beaverton, Oregon Beaverton is a city in the Tualatin Valley, located in Washington County in the U.S. state of Oregon, with a small portion bordering Portland. The city is among the main cities that make up the Portland metropolitan area. Its population was ...

. Prior to a merger in 2010 with Viasystems, the company had been the 31st largest public company in Oregon based on market capitalization as of 2006. The company is now part of TTM Technologies.

History

Merix Corporation was started in 1994 as a spin-off from Tektronix, Inc. in Oregon's

Silicon Forest Silicon Forest is a Washington County, Oregon, Washington County cluster of computing technology, high-tech companies located in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. The term most frequently refers to the industrial corrid ...

, employing 700 people. Tektronix continued to own 27% of the new company. The City of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development awarded Merix a BEST Award in 1997 for water conservation. Merix lost $9.6 million on revenues of $87 million in 2002, and followed that with losses of $30 million in 2003 on revenues of $95 million.Merix Corporation 2006 Annual Report.
Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved on March 25, 2008. In December 2004, the company bought Data Circuit Systems and named the unit Merix San Jose. That fiscal year, Merix returned to profitability with a $20,000 in earnings from $156 million in revenues. On September 29, 2005, Merix purchased the operations of Eastern Pacific Circuits Holding Limited. Merix renamed these operations as Merix Asia. In February 2007, the company was warned by

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

for failing to have a full three member independent

audit An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon." Auditing al ...

committee as required by NASDAQ listing rules. For the 2006 fiscal year they had revenues of $309 million and a profit of $1.4 million. In January 2008, Merix announced the closing of their Wood Village, Oregon, factory they opened in 2004.Trevison, Catherine. Merix to lay off 180, close plant. ''

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the West Coast of the United States, U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Tho ...

'', January 10, 2008. The company laid off 180 people company-wide as part of a restructuring plan at that time. Another 230 people were laid off in early 2009, and the company then lost $8.4 million on nearly $60 million in revenues in the quarter that ended in May 2009. Also in 2009, the company expanded its military and

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astron ...

customer base, adding contracts to companies such as

Rockwell Collins Rockwell Collins, Inc. was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radi ...

. In October 2009, Merix announced they would merge with Viasystems with the combined entity headquartered in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

. Merix reported a quarterly profit for the second quarter of their 2010 fiscal year, the first such profit since 2007. The merger with Viasystems was completed in February 2010. Viasystems was acquired by California-based TTM Technologies in May 2015 for $368 million.

Operations

The company's main domestic production facility was located in

Forest Grove, Oregon Forest Grove is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, west of Portland, Oregon, Portland. Originally a small farm town, it is now primarily a commuter town in the Portland metro area . Settled in the 1840s, the town was platted in ...

, in the

Portland metropolitan area The Portland metropolitan area is a metropolitan area, metro area with its urban area, core in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington (state), Washington. It has 5 principal cities, the largest being Portland, Oregon. The U.S. Office of Man ...

. The facility employed about 800 people and was the city's largest employer. Merix's other U.S. plant is located in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

. Company headquarters were in

, also in the Portland area, with Mike Burger as the

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

since 2007. Merix produced printed circuit boards used in various electronic equipment worldwide. This was primarily multi-layered rigid PCBs used in the automotive industry, communications equipment, testing equipment, and the computer industry. The manufacturing facilities were located primarily in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

.Company profile for MERX.
Reuters. Retrieved on March 25, 2008.

References

External links

- ''Portland Business Journal''

- ''Portland Business Journal'' {{FormerORCompanies Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Companies based in Beaverton, Oregon Manufacturing companies based in Oregon Electronics companies established in 1994 Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq 1994 establishments in Oregon 2010 mergers and acquisitions Motherboard companies