ST IVES-based contract electronics manufacturer Prism Electronics Ltd is expanding its production capacity with investments in its own plant and an agreement with one of South Africa s leading contract electronics manufacturers. The expanded capacity in S

ST IVES-based contract electronics manufacturer Prism Electronics Ltd is expanding its production capacity with investments in its own plant and an agreement with one of South Africa's leading contract electronics manufacturers.

The expanded capacity in St Ives and the new South African relationship, reported here earlier this year, mean the company can offer economical higher volume production. Production takes place in either Cambridgeshire or South Africa depending on customer needs.

Prism managing director David Aspinall said: "We have an established reputation for assisting customers with design and manufacture of assemblies and equipment where there is complexity in meeting their requirements.

"Typical applications include specialist medical equipment, scientific instruments and industrial control systems where product volumes may be modest and unpredictable.

"However, we have previously lacked the capacity to support larger volume manufacture ourselves. We are now in a position to do this."

Prism has also secured a contract to supply printed circuit boards (PCBs) to a US manufacturer of niche industrial inkjet printers.

The US company's latest product is an industrial inkjet printer that uses technology developed in Letchworth.

FoneStarz Media, also based in St Ives, has signed a new distribution deal with content aggregator Thumbtribe to bring mobile users across South Africa its latest range of international multimedia content.

FoneStarz will provide a full range of wallpapers, ringtones, videos and animations to enable Thumbtribe to offer its operator customers a content-rich service. Content will be available on MTN - the largest operator in South Africa - as well as Virgin, which has recently celebrated its first anniversary in the country. In addition to these operators, Nokia and Samsung subscribers will be able to access the full range of content through their handset portals.