Dean Technology, Inc : A Frankenstein of High Voltage Companies

Founded in 1989 and based in Farmingdale, New Jersey, Dean Technology, Inc. specializes in the production of high voltage power solutions including components, assemblies, and power supplies. Through a series of strategic company and product line acquisitions, Dean Technology grew to operate under four major divisions: HV Component Associates (HVCA), CKE, High Voltage Power Solutions, Inc. (HVPSI), Electronics Manufacturing Inc. (EM), and Anshan Sun Locus HV Components Corp (ASL). Led by Craig Dean, who joined HV Component Associates in 1997, these mergers and acquisitions turned Dean Technology into a comprehensive provider of power equipment. Under Dean, the company grew from 17 people to a workforce of over 300 in three different countries. The company began when Craig Dean merged HVCA with CKE in 1999. Established in the 1960s, HVCA specialized in the design and manufacturer of rectifiers for Galileo Electro-Optic Corporation. HVCA purchased the Conditioning Semiconductor Devices Corporation to expand its product line with epoxy power blocks. Established in 1980, CKE was a low-medium silicon assembly company created from the merger of FMC Syntron (producer of metallic rectifier and surge suppressors) and selenium product lines from General Electric, International Rectifier, Westinghouse, and Sarkes-Tarzian (ST) Semicon.

Notable for the silicon zener TRANSAP line, CKE also entered the high voltage market when it acquired a high voltage channel stack line from Westinghouse/Powerex in 1989 and a line of half and full wave controlled SCR assemblies from International Rectifier in 1993. In 2001, Dean Technology was chosen as the parent company under which its other companies would be enveloped. This same year Dean Technology purchased EM (a high voltage diode assembly manufacturer and RF and transmitter designer). In 2002, the company’s product portfolio of suppression products was expanded even further with the silicon carbide varistor line from Therm-O-Disk. HVPSI and ASL (a Chinese manufacturing facility that had been providing diode diffusions for the company) were subsumed under Dean Technology in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Through this highly diverse family of companies,

Dean Technology’s product portfolio includes items from the following categories: high voltage diodes and assemblies, high voltage bridges and bridge assemblies, custom high voltage multipliers, high voltage power supplies, custom high voltage component assemblies, high voltage disk ceramic capacitors, and surge suppression components and assemblies. One of the company’s most recent additions are the high current, solid state 3 phase AC contactors with a carrying capability of up to 185 Amps, ratings of up to 1,600 V peak reverse voltage per leg, endurance of surges of up to 5,100 Amps, and output currents to 160 ARMS in ambient and 185 ARMS with forced air-cooling.