AE acquires closed partner’s technology

FORT COLLINS — Advanced Energy Industries Inc. (Nasdaq: AEIS) has taken ownership of a strategic partner’s technology after the company dissolved.

AE and Symphony Systems of Campbell, Calif., began collaborating in February 2000 on software designed to increase equipment efficiency within the semiconductor industry.

But various factors — the largest being the downturn in the semiconductor industry in 2001 — made it impossible for the five-year-old company to survive, said Joe Monkowski, AE’s senior vice president of business development. The semiconductor industry was also slow to embrace the new information technology, which had a devastating effect on Symphony, he said.

Symphony ceased operations…