Africa
• Arrow Electronics is collaborating with the non-profit organisations Close the Gap and Hoops of Hope to turn used cargo containers into fully equipped digital classrooms and health clinics that can be deployed to remote areas of Africa. The first such ‘DigiTruck’ was unveiled to the Tuleeni Orphanage in Tanzania, and is now providing some 80 orphans with a classroom full of high-quality, refurbished laptops, tablets and other IT equipment.
• Morocco has begun construction of a solar power plant that will cover an area larger than the country’s capital city of Rabat. Consisting of 500 000 solar mirrors, each 12 metres in height, it will generate 580 MW (enough for 1 million homes). Slated to cost $9 billion, the plant’s raison d’être is less about addressing climate and more about reducing Morocco’s dependence on imported fossil fuels.
Overseas
Business
• Texas Instruments reported third-quarter revenue of $3,43 billion, net income of $798 million and earnings per share (EPS) of 76 cents, and forecast fourth-quarter revenue in the range of $3,07 billion to $3,33 billion, and earnings per share between 64 and 74 cents. For comparison, the third quarter of 2014 yielded revenue of $3,50 billion, net income of $826 million and EPS of 76 cents.
• Freescale Semiconductor’s net sales for the third quarter of 2015 were $1,12 billion, compared to $1,20 billion in the second quarter of 2015 and $1,21 billion in the third quarter of 2014. Net earnings for the third quarter were $80 million, or $0,25 per share, compared to net earnings of $122 million, or $0,38 per share, in the second quarter of 2015 and $125 million, or $0,40 per share, in the third quarter of 2014.
• Revenue for Atmel’s third quarter of 2015 was $286,5 million, a 6% decrease compared to the second quarter of 2015, and 23% lower compared to the third quarter of 2014. Net loss totalled $0,6million or $0,00 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2015, compared to net income of $6,3 million or $0,02 per diluted share for the second quarter of 2015 and net income of $17,3 million or $0,04 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2014.
• Cypress Semiconductor announced its third quarter 2015 results, with third quarter revenue declining 4,3% sequentially in a softening semiconductor market. Pretax profit increased 10,6% quarter-on-quarter, driven in part by continued integration progress in the wake of its merger with Spansion, which led to a 7,9% reduction in operating expenses.
• Net sales for the second quarter of Microchip Technology’s fiscal 2016 were $541,4 million, down 0,9% from the prior year’s second fiscal quarter. GAAP net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2016 was $64,9 million, or 30 cents per diluted share, down 30,7% from the prior year’s second fiscal quarter.
Companies
• To solidify its strong position in solutions for the autonomous vehicles/advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) market, Freescale Semiconductor has acquired Canada-based CogniVue, a leading developer of image cognition IP for automotive and consumer applications. Freescale has shipped more than 20 million units into ADAS applications to date, and has designs in 9 of the world’s top 10 automotive OEMs.
Industry
• The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $85,2 billion during the third quarter of 2015. This total marks an increase of 1,5% compared to the previous quarter, but is 2,8% lower than the third quarter of last year. Global sales for the month of September 2015 were $28,4 billion, 1,9% more than the previous month but 2,8% less than sales from September 2014. Regionally, sales were up compared to August in the Americas (4,0%), China (2,6%), Europe (2,2%), Japan (0,5%) and Asia Pacific/All Other (0,1%). Year-to-year sales increased in China (5,0%), but decreased in Asia Pacific/All Other (-3,5%), the Americas (-3,9%), Europe (-10,6%) and Japan (-11,4%).
• ARM has joined the Semiconductor Research Corporation’s (SRC) Global Research Collaboration (GRC) programme, which focuses on current semiconductor industry priorities, including the continued scaling of technologies and finding diverse applications for them. The programme has also expanded into new areas, including cybersecurity, technologies at the convergence of semiconductors and biology, novel approaches to energy-efficient computing, and the Internet of Things.
• According to market analyst firm IC Insights, the automotive IC market is forecast to increase at an average annual growth rate of 6,7%, highest among the six major end-use IC applications, driven by the growth of systems that assist, automate and communicate on new luxury and base model vehicles. In 2015, IC Insights estimates that automotive IC sales will represent 7,3% of the total $287,1 billion IC market. Yet, despite growing at a faster annual rate than other end-use segments, automotive IC sales are not forecast to account for much more of the total IC market than they do today. The automotive IC market is forecast to represent 8,1% of the total $358,7 billion IC market in 2019. Falling average selling prices continue to offset steady unit growth – particularly among automotive analog, MCU and special purpose logic devices – which has mitigated bigger gains in auto’s share of the total IC market.
• Infineon Technologies launched the Infineon Security Partner Network (ISPN) to make proven semiconductor-based security easily accessible to the growing number of manufacturers of connected devices and systems. The ISPN connects IoT security players with outstanding expertise in specific applications and markets. They provide solutions for applications ranging from professional water filter systems to smart homes and industrial control. The partners cover the value chain from design consultation to systems integration and service management.
Technology
• Researchers at the University of Illinois have devised a new method to cool solids using light – so-called Raman cooling. Heat in a solid is stored in the form of phonons – quantised vibrational degrees-of-freedom of a material. When photons interact with an object, they exchange momentum and vibrational energy with the object through the addition or removal of phonons. The new research shows that a system which only allows photon scattering that results in the removal of phonons, could result in a new refrigeration mechanism that could be applied to any transparent material, with any geometry and any laser wavelength.
• GE Lighting is looking to give street lights the ability to detect gunshots and automatically report them to emergency responders. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with SST, developer of the ShotSpotter crime detection and location suite, laying the groundwork to embed the technology into its intelligent LED street lights. The proposed solution would integrate with GE’s Intelligent Environments for Cities solution, which features software and sensor-enabled LED lighting powered by its Predix cloud-based platform for the industrial Internet.
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