South Africa
Infineon Technologies is supplying the security chips for the largest government smartcard project in South Africa. Through Net1 UEPS Technologies, the government body SASSA (South African Social Security Agency) is issuing biometrically secure EMV/UEPS debit chip cards for financial transactions of social grants across all of South Africa’s nine provinces. Infineon provides its SOLID FLASH SLE 77 security controller to Net1’s subsidiary Cash Paymaster Services, which is responsible for implementing this service for SASSA.
International
Business
ams (formerly austriamicrosystems) continued to grow revenues and earnings in the second quarter of 2012. Second quarter group revenues grew to 96,1 million Euros, an increase of 66% from 57,9 million Euros in the same quarter of 2011 and up 6% quarter-on-quarter. Revenues for the first half of 2012 were 186,8 million Euros, an increase of 65% from 113,0 million Euros recorded in the first half of 2011. Increasing expectations once again, ams now expects 2012 revenue growth of around 40% year-on-year.
RF Micro Devices reported financial results for its fiscal 2013 first quarter ended 30 June 2012. Revenue increased sequentially approximately 8% to $202,7 million, while GAAP net loss was $19,1 million, or $0,07 per diluted share.
Trimble announced second quarter revenue of $517,6 million, up 27% as compared to the second quarter of 2011. GAAP net income for the quarter was $53,7 million, flat compared to the second quarter last year. Diluted earnings per share in the second quarter of 2012 were $0,42 as compared to $0,43 in the second quarter of 2011.
ON Semiconductor announced that total revenues in the second quarter of 2012 were $744,8 million, approximately flat compared to the first quarter of 2012. During the second quarter of 2012, the company reported GAAP net income of $6,9 million, or $0,02 per fully diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2012 was $128,9 million, compared to $120,1 million for the previous quarter. Outgoing CFO Donald Colvin announced that the company is currently in plans to cut 10% of non-manufacturing headcount in “high cost regions”.
STMicroelectronics’ second quarter net revenues increased 6,5% on a sequential basis to reach $2,15 billion, with ST’s wholly-owned businesses posting a sequential increase of 4,4% while the wireless product segment grew by about 19%. All regions grew sequentially with Greater China and South Asia up about 9%, the Americas by about 5%, and EMEA and Japan and Korea each by approximately 4%.
Memory chip startup Avalanche Technology has closed its third round of equity funding by raising $30 million dollars, bringing to $50 million the total money invested in the company since its 2006 formation. The money will be used to put the company’s spin-transfer torque magnetic random access memory (STT_MRAM) in production.
EXFO announced the milestone of having sold over 25 000 units of its FTB-200 Compact Platform to over a thousand customers from around the world, a testament to the ever-present need for high-end testing modules in small, portable formats.
Infineon Technologies reported revenue of 990 million Euros for the third quarter of the 2012 fiscal year, approximately unchanged from the previous quarter’s 986 million Euros. Net income for the third quarter amounted to 82 million Euros, down from the 111 million Euros reported one quarter earlier. Third quarter basic and diluted earnings per share were 0,08 Euros compared with 0,10 Euros in the previous quarter.
NXP Semiconductors reported financial results for the second quarter of 2012, ended 1 July. Total revenue was $1,09 billion, down slightly from the $1,12 billion of last year’s second quarter but up sequentially from $978 million. GAAP net loss was $90 million, or $0,36 per share, compared to net income of $84 million, or $0,33 per share, in the second quarter of 2011 and net loss of $24 million, or $0,10 per share, in the first quarter of 2012.
Announcing its unaudited financial results for the first half of the year ended 30 June 2012, ARM Holdings reported revenue of £268 million, up some 15% on 2011’s half-year total. Earnings increased by an even greater margin, up 22% to 6,93 pence per share. Two billion ARM chips shipped in the 2012 second quarter, up 9% year-on-year, while processor royalties grew 14%.
Companies
NCAB Group, one of the world’s largest suppliers of printed circuit boards (PCBs), has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of the shares in P. D. Circuits. Based in New Hampshire, with operations in southern China and Hong Kong, P. D. Circuits is one of the leading PCB suppliers in the USA. NCAB will, after the acquisition, have sales in excess of $100 million with 13 locations around the world and 210 employees.
An article in the Taipei Times reports that Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission has approved MediaTek’s application to acquire local rival MStar Semiconductor. MediaTek, the country’s leading handset chip designer, intends to fully acquire MStar, the world’s top TV chip supplier, for NT$115 billion (US$3,83 billion) in a cash-and-share offer by the first quarter of next year.
RS Components has secured a global deal to distribute HiWave Technologies’ range of audio amplifier ICs, full frequency range speaker drivers and bending-wave haptic touch devices. Stock availability is expected in August for African customers.
Following a successful joint development effort with startup bTendo, STMicroelectronics has acquired the intellectual property and has hired most of the staff of the Israeli company to accelerate the propagation of video sharing technology. The development effort, aimed at combining bTendo’s Scanning Laser Projection engine with ST’s MEMS expertise, video processing know-how and semiconductor process technology, has produced evaluation samples ideally suited, because of their tiny size and low power consumption, for integration into next-generation smartphones, digital cameras and laptops.
Industry
According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $24,38 billion for the month of June 2012, a slight decrease of 0,1% from the prior month when sales were $24,40 billion. Sales from June 2012 were 2% lower than the June 2011 total of $24,89 billion, but the year-over-year decrease was smaller than it has been since October 2011. Sales increased on a sequential monthly basis in Japan (2%) and Asia Pacific (0,6%) but declined in Europe (-0,7%) and the Americas (-3,6%).
Economic troubles are spurring unseasonably large price declines for a broad range of electronic parts, creating a near-term buying opportunity for purchasers, according to an IHS iSuppli report. Pricing for widely used components including capacitors, crystals, filters, magnetics, oscillators and PCBs all are set to decline at above-average rates in the third and fourth quarters. The market research firm further predicts that pricing for the components will continue to decline until the second quarter of 2013, when a rebound is expected to commence.
The IEEE has produced a report forecasting that in 2015 there will be nearly 15 billion fixed and mobile networked devices and machine-to-machine connections. In addition to these increases, a fourfold increase in fixed broadband speeds is forecast, as the average speed of 7 Mbps in 2010 is expected to rise to 28 Mbps in 2015.
The global photovoltaic (PV) inverter market is predicted by IMS Research to grow by 23% in 2012 and hit almost 32 GW. However, the report forecast industry revenues to grow by just 3% in 2012 to hit $7 billion for the first time.
Technology
Physicists at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with colleagues in Taiwan and China, have developed the world’s smallest semiconductor laser, a breakthrough for emerging photonic technology with applications from computing to medicine. When fired, the nanolaser – which is too small to be visible to the naked eye - emits a green light, and is seen as an important building block for developing chips with fully on-chip communication systems.
Qualcomm and Renault are embarking on a trial of the former’s Halo wireless electric vehicle charging (WEVC) technology, with the aim of integrating it into Renault’s vehicles. The trial will take place in London, with the objectives of evaluating the commercial viability of wireless EV charging and gain user feedback on the use of WEVC-enabled vehicles. A similar deal has been made with Delta for testing in its E-4 Coupé.
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