Ridgetop Group Receives Purchase Order from Raytheon Missile Systems for Solder-Soint BIST Demonstration Kits

Tucson, Arizona -- July 19, 2007 -- Ridgetop Group, Inc., of Tucson, Arizona, a fast-growing high-technology firm, reported it has received a purchase order from Raytheon Missile Systems (RMS), Tucson, AZ, to design, build, program, and deliver Solder-Joint Built-in-Self-Test™ (SJ BIST™) evaluation and demonstration kits. The demonstration kits will allow RMS to evaluate SJ BIST for possible inclusion in one or more RMS programs. SJ BIST, patent pending, another of the many electronic prognostic innovations invented, designed and built by Ridgetop Group, is a result of innovative research focused on solder-joint degradation prognostics.

Electronic control systems, such as those found on vehicles of all types, such as aircraft, missiles and automobiles, have electronic circuit boards with components, such as microprocessors, that are mounted to the boards using solder balls affixed to their input and output pins. Solder balls are subject to thermo-mechanical stresses that cause them to crack and eventually fail, causing troublesome intermittent operational faults that are difficult to diagnose. Early, definitive detection of a solder-joint failure is an important addition to methodologies to improve operational readiness of all types of vehicles, including automobiles and jet aircraft. The Principal Investigator and Engineering Manager is James Hofmeister, Senior Principal Engineer.

Doug Goodman, Ridgetop’s CEO stated: “SJ BIST, which is the result of one of our many innovations in electronic prognostics, has application in the mitigation of intermittent problems caused by solder-joint failures, especially in controllers packaged as ball grid arrays.”

Ridgetop Group is a privately-held, woman-owned firm founded in 2000 that provides missioncritical electronic prognostic tools, fault-to-failure prognostic libraries, semiconductor IP libraries and engineering services. Customers include NAVAIR, Air Force Research Labs (AFRL), Missile Defense Agency (MDA), DaimlerChrysler, Raytheon Missile Systems (RMS), ATK/Mission Research, Honeywell, NAVSEA, DARPA, NASA Ames, NASA Goddard and Department of Energy (DOE) .

For further information, please visit our website at www.ridgetop-group.com