South Africa
Many were shocked last year when the SABC reported a not insubstantial sum of R100 million in ‘irregular expenditure’ for its 2012/13 financial year. This year, it managed to burn through that much every 11 days on average, having reported a staggering R3,39 billion in irregular expenditure. When asked to explain the situation, during a meeting of parliament’s oversight committee on communications, the corporation’s acting chief financial officer provided no clearer explanation than that the irregular expenditure was in fact incurred over the last three years, but only reflected this year because it was not previously disclosed. The apparent position of the SABC’s current leadership, that this is an historical issue and therefore not its problem, has prompted the DA to refer the matter to the Public Protector.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality announced a planned pilot project for non-grid solar home systems. The first phase is expected to outfit about 3000 shacks with a basic photovoltaic (PV) system that consists of one PV panel, a battery, charge controller, four LED lights with switches and a 12 V car cigarette lighter socket to charge mobile phones. R12,9 million for installation and R7 million for maintenance and monitoring of the system has been budgeted, while an additional 50 solar streetlights will cost an estimated R2,1 million.
Overseas
Business
Microchip Technology reported financial results for the three months ended 30 September 2014. Its net sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2015 were $546,2 million, up 3,3% sequentially from the immediately preceding quarter, and up 10,9% from the prior year’s second fiscal quarter. Net income was $93,6 million, or 42 cents per diluted share, up 4,2% from the immediately preceding quarter, and down 6,2% from the prior year’s second fiscal quarter.
For Kemet’s second quarter, net sales were $215,3 million, which was 3,3% higher than in the same quarter of 2013. Net income from continuing operations was $7,7 million, or $0,15 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $11,9 million, or $0,26 loss per basic and diluted share, for last year’s second quarter.
In RF Micro Devices’ second quarter, quarterly revenue increased 15% sequentially and 17% year-over-year to $362,7 million. Net income was $63,3 million ($0,21 per diluted share), versus $38,6 million ($0,13 per diluted share) in the immediately preceding quarter and $5,9 million ($0,02 per diluted share) in the second quarter last year.
Texas Instruments announced third-quarter revenue of $3,50 billion (up 8% year-over-year), net income of $826 million (up 31%) and earnings per share of 76 cents (up 36%). The company returned $4,2 billion to shareholders in the past 12 months through stock repurchases and dividends paid.
The first quarter of Linear Technology’s 2015 fiscal year produced revenues of $371,1 million, a $5,6 million or 1,5% increase over the previous quarter and a $30,7 million or 9,0% increase over the first quarter of fiscal year 2014. Net income of $129,5 million decreased $0,3 million from the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2014 and increased $21,6 million or 20,0% over the first quarter of fiscal year 2014.
Companies
Qualcomm has agreed terms for its cash acquisition of CSR, which will give it new products, channels and customers in the growing markets for the Internet of Everything (IoE) and automotive infotainment. At £9,00 per share, this adds up to a total price tag of roughly £1,6 billion.
AVX has expanded its partnership with Modelithics through the addition of 45 new substrate scalable equivalent circuit models. Designed to speed up design decisions and circuit level optimisations when used in combination with the industry’s leading electronic design automation tools, including Keysight Advanced Design System (ADS), Keysight Genesys, and NI AWR Microwave Office, highly accurate, substrate scalable models are now available for AVX thin film couplers, multilayer organic (MLO) diplexers, and a variety of RF/microwave capacitors and inductors.
Industry
The Semiconductor Industry Association announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $87 billion during the third quarter of 2014, an increase of 5,7% over the previous quarter and a jump of 8% compared to the third quarter of 2013. Compared to September 2013, sales for September 2014 increased in Asia Pacific (12%), Europe (7,9%) and the Americas (3,7%), but decreased in Japan (-3,7%).
Technology
A new digital audio bus technology dubbed A2B (Automotive Audio Bus) has been developed by Analog Devices. Capable of distributing audio and control data together with clock and power over a single, unshielded twisted-pair wire, the technology not only delivers high-fidelity audio, it can even improve vehicle fuel efficiency thanks to the resulting weight reduction of cable harnesses. Panasonic Automotive is one of A2B’s early adopters.
An LED for car headlights, developed by Osram Opto Semiconductors, has achieved the output of 1400 lm and 200 Mcd/m² in the laboratory – three times the luminance of existing LEDs. This means that a single LED can be used to provide a complete low beam. This tremendous brightness is the result of a combination of UX:3 chip technology, ceramic conversion technology and high-current technology used in projection applications.
A world record 40 Gbps wireless transmission rate has been achieved by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology and Ericsson Research. This represents a massive leap from today’s fastest commercial technology (LTE-Advanced at 1 Gbps) and was achieved using a single carrier chipset in the 140 GHz band, which falls in a sparsely populated portion of spectrum.
Scientists from Japan’s Tohoku University have developed what they believe could be the next big thing in lighting – cheaper than LEDs and brighter than OLEDs. The prototype they have demonstrated uses carbon nanotube field emitters to stimulate a phosphor to glow, and the team expects to attain efficiency of 60 lumens per Watt with future iterations. This technology also has the advantage of being able to be formed into panels of any size, but will likely not see commercial release until 2019.
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