GRENOBLE, France May 1 -- MEMSCAP, a provider of microelectromechanical systems for the communications industry, reported strong growth for the quarter ended March 31. Revenue for the first quarter reached 97 percent of the revenue for fiscal year 2000 at 3.0 million EURO. The company's ten-year intellectual property agreement with Walsin Lihwa pushed first-quarter wireless revenue to 2.3 million EURO, the company said. The company also reported 161 percent backlog growth for the first quarter compared with end-of-year 2000. "We are excited that MEMSCAP's communications business has shown strong growth despite a subdued market climate," said Jean-Michel Karam, president and CEO of the company. "Ongoing demand for designs, licenses and proof-of-concept work for major customers points towards widespread deployment of MEMS as the most viable solution for cost-effective, integrated communications components. These results serve to reinforce our position as the telecom MEMS company." MEMSCAP recorded first quarter revenue of 3.0 million EURO, compared with a total of 3.1 million EURO for all of fiscal year 2000. The Wireless Communications business unit saw revenue of 2.3 million EURO, or 79 percent of quarterly revenue, compared with 0.2 million EURO for all of the previous year. The sharp increase was due in part to initial income from the company's long-term agreement with Walsin Lihwa Corp., whereby Walsin will license design and manufacturing intellectual property for volume production of components and modules based on radio frequency MEMS. The Optical business unit brought in 0.4 million EURO for the quarter, compared with 0.5 million EURO for all of fiscal year 2000. Optical revenue was driven in part by ongoing work with major account ADC for which the company is in the pre-production phase for a variety of optical components including switches.