Teledyne e2v

The company began in the early 1940s as a part of the Marconi group, manufacturing magnetrons for defence radar systems. The company was first registered as a separate company in Chelmsford, Essex in 1947 under Simeon Aisenstein. Its initial name was the Phoenix Dynamo Co Ltd, though it immediately changed its name to English Electric Valve Company Ltd.

In 1959, Bob Coulson established travelling-wave tube and microwave tube sections, and they were producing ceramic hydrogen thyratrons as well. By this time EEV was the largest hi-tech manufacturing company in the UK. A year later they won an Emmy award for their outstanding contribution to electronics technology in developing the 4½" orthicon television camera tube. In 1961 they acquired the Associated Electrical Industries valve business based in Lincoln. Sir Charles Oatley was a director of the company from 1966 to 1985.

In 1962, EEV opened its first office in America in Buffalo, NY. In 1972, they opened an office in Paris, France and in 1977 they opened another office in Elmsford, New York. Keith Attwood, e2v's CEO from 1999 to 2013 led e2v through a short period as Marconi Applied Technologies, and then in 2002 he led a management buy-out supported by 3i following the collapse of the Marconi group. Following further growth under 3i, in 2004 the company floated on the London Stock Exchange.

In 2017, e2v was acquired by Teledyne Technologies who changed its name to Teledyne e2v.

Business profile

In its final annual report prior to acquisition, namely for the 12 months ending March 2016, e2v's turnover was £236.4 million, of which 44% was generated from its imaging division, 34% from radio frequency (RF) power products and 22% from semiconductors, and it employed around 1,600 staff across nine engineering facilities and six sales offices. Its profit before tax for the same period was £37.6mn.

Global operations

With its HQ in Chelmsford, Essex, England, e2v has two UK based design, development and manufacturing facilities (Chelmsford, Lincoln), one in Grenoble, France, one in Seville, Spain, and one in Milpitas, US. It also has an operational base with customer support facilities in Beijing, China. Over 30% of the staff are engineers or scientists. e2v also has sales, service and technical support offices in the UK, North America, France, Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong:

Chelmsford UK – (HQ for e2v) Northern European regional sales office

Milpitas US – Design, development and manufacturing facility specialising in aerospace and defence hi-rel semiconductor solutions

In 2005, e2v purchased Gresham Scientific Instruments (renamed e2v scientific instruments), and sold in 2012 to SGX Sensortech. In 2006 it purchased the Grenoble, France facility from the Atmel Corporation in 2006 (now renamed e2v semiconductors) and MiCs Microchemical systems based in Corcelles Switzerland (renamed e2v Microsystems and sold to SGX Sensortech in 2012) and in October 2008 e2v acquired QP semiconductor, a US-based designer and supplier of speciality semiconductor components used in military and aerospace applications, establishing e2v's first US manufacturing base.

In 2014 e2v acquired AnaFocus, based in Seville Spain, a designer and manufacturer of specialist CMOS imaging products.

In 2016, e2v acquired Signal Processing (SP) Devices Sweden AB.

In March 2017, e2v itself was acquired by Teledyne Technologies for some £627 million ($789mn) and changed its name to Teledyne e2v. The US acquisition was 70 years to the month after the original English company's registration in 1947. In its 2018 annual report, Teledyne Technologies said the final purchase price for e2v was $740.6 million, net of cash acquired as part of the business, adding that e2v had been Teledyne's largest acquisition in its history.