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Analog Devices announced financial results for its third quarter of fiscal year 2013, which ended 3 August. Revenue was $674,2 million, up from the previous quarter’s $659,3 million but down from 2012’s third quarter of $683,0 million. By end market, industrial applications totalled 47% of revenue, communications infrastructure made up 21%, and automotive and consumer applications comprised 18% and 15%, respectively. Net income was $176,2 million and diluted earnings per share (EPS) was $0,56, which represented a sequential and year-on-year improvement.
For its fiscal second quarter ended 31 July 2013, Mentor Graphics reported revenues of $253,2 million and EPS of $0,19. In the same quarter last year, the company’s revenues were $240,8 million and EPS was $0,16.
Net revenue for Avago Technologies’ third quarter of fiscal year 2013 was $644 million, an increase of 15% compared with the previous quarter and an increase of 6% from the same quarter last year. Third quarter net income was $142 million, or $0,56 per diluted share. This compares with net income of $113 million, or $0,45 per diluted share for the prior quarter, and net income of $145 million, or $0,58 per diluted share in the same quarter last year.
ams has invested over 25 million Euros to create dedicated 3D IC production capacity at its wafer fabrication plant near Graz, Austria. The move comes in response to a surge in demand outlook for the company’s 3D IC integration technology, which employs techniques such as TSV (through-silicon via) interconnects to replace the bond wires in conventional single-die devices, and the ability to bond two dice produced in different processes (such as a photodiode die and a silicon signal-processing die) back-to-back to produce a monolithic stacked-die device.
Semtech reported unaudited financial results for its fiscal year 2014 second quarter, with net revenue of $165,0 million, up 9,5% from the second quarter of 2013 and up 1,6% from the first quarter of 2014. Net income for the second quarter of fiscal year 2014 was $19,1 million or 28 cents per diluted share. This compares to net income of $10,0 million or 15 cents per diluted share in the second quarter of fiscal year 2013 and net income of $14,8 million or 22 cents per diluted share in the first quarter of fiscal year 2014.
Companies
Maxim Integrated has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Volterra Semiconductor for $23 per share, which equates to a total transaction value of approximately $605 million. Volterra develops high-current, high-performance and high-density power management solutions primarily for the enterprise, cloud computing, communications and networking markets.
Micrel has agreed to acquire the business of Discera, a provider of silicon timing solutions. The acquisition is intended to complement Micrel’s high-performance clock and timing products, as well as expand its MEMS (micro-electrical mechanical systems) capabilities. Micrel expects the acquisition will be slightly dilutive in 2013 and neutral to slightly accretive in 2014 on a GAAP basis.
Industry
Following Samsung’s introduction of the first flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) products this year, the global market for these elastic displays is expected to grow to $94,8 million in 2014, up from $21,9 million in 2013, according to a new report from IHS. OLEDs represent a major segment of the larger flexible display market, which in the coming years will also include liquid-crystal display (LCD) and electronic paper (e-paper) technology. Flexible displays are expected to eventually evolve into rollable and foldable OLED screens that are likely to be introduced after 2016.
By 2018, ABI Research expects annual home automation device shipments to exceed 351 million, growing at a CAGR of 78%. ZigBee dominated IEEE 802.15.4 and claimed the top share of node shipments at 4,5 million, narrowly beating out proprietary protocol offerings. Another wireless communication protocol that has gained traction in the home automation market is Z-Wave, which enjoys support from consumers in the DIY segment thanks to interoperability of the wide portfolio of vendor products. Smart devices that use the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol part of Bluetooth v4.0 single-mode specification will experience the highest growth in the category, reaching over 133 million units by 2018.
According to findings from Semicast, the market share for ARM-based embedded processors in the automotive sector is judged to have passed 50% in 2012, exceeding those for all other 32-bit architectures combined, including Power Architecture, SuperH, TriCore and V850. ARM’s presence is well established in most of the main systems in the automobile, including airbag, body electronics, braking, driver assistance, infotainment, instrument cluster, radio, navigation, embedded telematics and communications modules.
Technology
Samsung Electronics has commenced production of DDR4 memory, which at this stage is targeted mainly at enterprise servers in next-generation data centres. Early market availability of the 4 Gb DDR4 devices, which use 20 nm-class process technology, will facilitate demand for 16 GB and 32 GB memory modules. According to Samsung, the memory has the fastest DRAM data transmission rate of 2667 megabits per second – a 1,25-fold increase over 20 nm-class DDR3, while lowering power consumption by more than 30%.
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