Contract

Radstone Technology PLC 11 September 2000 Radstone Technology PLC Radstone Technology awarded $18 million technology-upgrade contract from Northrop Grumman for US Army Firefinder Radar Programme Radstone Technology has received further orders from Northrop Grumman, worth a total of $18m, to supply key Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) modules into the U.S. Army's Firefinder counter-battery radar defence system. Importantly, Radstone will be re-designing aspects of these modules to combat component obsolescence. Re-engineering will ensure product life is extended to meet the anticipated production life of the latest version of the Firefinder system. The first tranche of the new orders, with related revenues of approximately $2m, will be delivered in the current financial year, with further deliveries to be scheduled over the following four years. Dr. Robert Weber, Northrop Grumman's Programme Director for Firefinder said: 'This order highlights the benefits of selecting the right supplier from the outset. The management of component obsolescence is a key area for any developer using COTS products and it is important, therefore, to choose suppliers who understand the issues involved and can work with us to maintain system integrity and longevity through technology refresh.' Peter Cavill, Managing Director of Radstone Technology, said: 'This order underlines our long-term commitment to what we call Whole Programme Life COTSTM, an approach that aims to reduce overall cost of ownership and provide industry-leading safeguards against obsolescence.' Firefinder, which is deployed in battlefield conditions to detect incoming ballistic projectiles, rapidly calculates the launch location and provides targeting data to counterfire batteries. The first generation of Firefinder was originally developed in the early 1970s. Radstone Technology joined the programme in 1992 when it was commissioned to upgrade the processing core of the computer system, with the first production orders placed in 1996. Products to be re-engineered include versions of Radstone Technology's VSP-1 (Vector Signal Processor) board; CPU-44 68040-based CPU; and PIO-2 parallel I/O board. The solution will include the re-design of the printed wiring boards to accommodate the different packaging and associated circuitry used by today's generation of silicon, and the re-targeting of the design of custom ASICs to today's technology. For further information please contact: Radstone Technology PLC 01327 359444 Dr Charles Paterson, Managing Director Jeff Perrin, Finance Director Square Mile Communications Ltd 020 7601 1000 Nick Oborne/Stephanie Smart