Southern Africa
Altron reported strong results for the half year. The Altron Group, now transformed from an investment holding company to an operating company as a result of the acquisition of the Fintech and Powertech minorities, has shown continued strong resilience to challenging local and international trading conditions with a pleasing set of results for the half year to 31 August 2002. Revenue increased by 24% from R5 bn to R6,2 bn while operating income improved by 24% from R329m to R407m.
Keops Isis Industrial Information Systems (Keops Isis), a provider of manufacturing execution and control systems to the South African processing industry and integrator of multilevel industrial information systems, has changed its name to Keops Altech. Pieter Theron, managing director of Keops Altech, said the company's name change is the result of a strategic decision to align itself with Altech's focus on the convergence of telecommunications, multimedia and information technology (TMT).
On 10 October, the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) presented three annual awards that recognise those who have excelled at the promotion of standardisation. The Standards Media Award, 'for exceptional contribution to increasing the awareness of standardisation and related issues through the media', was presented to Chris Yelland, managing editor of EE Publishers. Viv Cohen, the technical services manager of Circuit Breaker Industries, received the Standards Development Award 'for exceptional contribution to standardisation through participation in technical committee work'. Alan Gower, formerly Director Distribution (Southern Region) of eThekwini (Durban) Electricity, received the NRS Award, presented for the first time, 'for exceptional contribution to standardisation through participation in NRS work'.
The Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) near Krugersdorp was selected as one of the eight radio telescopes around the world that made continuous measurements of the earth as part of an intensive campaign called CONT02 during October. HartRAO is South Africa's national research facility for radio astronomy and space geodesy, managed by the National Research Foundation (NRF). The radio antennas used the measuring technique of VLBI (very long baseline interferometry), which receives the natural radio waves coming from quasars near the edge of the visible universe. The campaign will provide very high quality data sets to study changes in the earth's properties.
Systems distributor Comztek has won 3Com SA's Distributor of the Year Award for 2001-2002. The company said the selection was based on a number of criteria, including revenue target achievement, technical support, contributions towards marketing programmes, and the results of a reseller poll.
Dimension Data has announced it is merging its key services call centres, based in Gauteng, into one centralised Operations Centre at its new headquarters at The Campus, in Bryanston. The new National Operations Centre will be operational from late November 2002.
Tempe Technologies will be presenting a morning seminar on behalf of Microchip Technology on 12 November 2002 in Cape Town. Venue: Holiday Inn, Garden Court - Newlands. Contact Brett Klette, 011 452 0530, [email protected].
Analog Data Products has moved to: MB Worksoft House, MB Worksoft Park, Cnr. 3rd Ave & Rivonia Rd, Rivonia. Tel: 011 259 9400, Fax: 011 259 9409.
Overseas
Business
Microchip Technology has reported sales of $169,7m for the second fiscal quarter, an increase of 6,3% from sales of $159,7m in the immediately preceding quarter, and an increase of 19,8% from sales of $141,7m in the same quarter last year. It reported a net of $10,2m, in the quarter, compared to $23,1m in the like period a year ago. Said Microchip CEO, Steve Sanghi: "In an industry environment that remains extremely challenging, Microchip's performance in the September quarter can only be described as exceptional. Our overall performance was led by our microcontroller product line which posted a sequential revenue gain of approximately 7%, and year over year growth of approximately 22%."
Motorola has reported sales of $6,4 bn in the 2002 Q3, and net earnings of $111m, marking a return to profit after several quarters of losses. Profitability was led by the Personal Communications (PCS) and Semiconductor Products (SPS) segments, said Motorola. Sales in Motorola's Semiconductor Products Segment were $1,2 bn, up 13% compared to the year-ago quarter. Double-digit order growth was reported in all three business groups: wireless and broadband; networking and computing; and transportation and standard products.
International Rectifier has reported net income of $11m on revenues of $212,2m in the quarter ended September, compared to net income of $9,6m on revenues of $168,5m in the prior-year quarter. That compares to net income of $16,1m on revenues of $201,0m in the immediately-preceding quarter. "Business conditions were mixed in the quarter. Automotive, defence, and industrial business was strong, but demand fell short in high-end information technology applications, and the resulting mix shift put gross margins under renewed pressure," said Alex Lidow, IR's CEO. "We are currently evaluating steps to enhance our position in proprietary products and address weak market conditions. These actions include consolidating factories, centralising support organisations, and lowering overhead costs."
Intersil reported sales of $191,3m in the quarter, an increase of 9% from the adjusted net revenue of the previous quarter and 43% from a year ago. It said net income for the third quarter of 2002 was $3,6m, compared to a net loss of $18,3m, for the prior quarter and a net loss of $3,3m, for the same period a year ago. Rich Beyer, Intersil's president and CEO, said that the company experienced particularly strong demand for wireless networking and power management products. Revenues for these were up 26% and 7% respectively, from the previous quarter.
Atmel reported sales of $298,7m for the third quarter ended Sep 30, down 5% from $314,8m in the second quarter of 2002 but up 1% from $294,7m in the third quarter of 2001. Atmel recorded a net loss of $102,3m, for the third quarter of 2002. Included in the loss is $5m related to the company's Texas-based fab, which was closed during the quarter, said Atmel.
Companies
IDT is aquiring Solidum Systems, a provider of classification and content inspection processing solutions. IDT said that Solidum brings technology expertise and intellectual property that is complementary to its own packet-processing strategy. Solidum's products work in conjunction with IDT's network search engines and will bolster IDT's ability to deliver deep packet classification and more intelligent packet-processing solutions.
Via Technologies has purchased Swedish DSP firm, Freehand DSP, for an undisclosed sum. Freehand is a developer of DSP cores for voice communications applications such as adaptive filtering and echo cancellation.
RF Micro Devices has announced it has agreed to purchase Resonext Communications, a developer of wireless LAN devices, for $133m in stock.
Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS) has made an equity investment in Morpho Technologies, an IP startup house that is developing 'reconfigurable' digital signal processing (DSP) technology. According to Morpho, its MS1 architecture provides a reconfigurable array of individual DSP cells, which enables a parallel-processing engine for a range of applications.
Zarlink Semiconductor, of Ottawa, has formed the High-Performance Analog Group, to be based in Swindon, UK. The group is "developing a comprehensive family of high-performance analog communications devices to key markets - frequency synthesis and timing, broadband amplifiers, and broadband line drivers," said Jitesh Vadhia, GM of Network Access business unit at Zarlink. The company also recently announced it is exiting the VDSL (very-high-rate Digital Subscriber Line) chip market to focus "on higher and more immediate growth opportunities."
Infineon Technologies has joined Symbian's Platinum Partner Program as a Semiconductor Partner to support the trend from voice-only to feature-rich open platform mobile phones. Infineon said it will port Symbian OS (operating system) to its GOLD product family of GPRS/EDGE/UMTS baseband modem and application processors and, thus will offer tailored technology solutions for mobile multimedia applications.
Ericsson has announced partnerships with Proxim and Agere Systems to co-develop and supply telecom operators with complete end-to-end solutions for wireless local area networks. Under the plan, the companies will develop 802.11 solutions, based on open standards. They will also develop Wi-Fi solutions for 'hot spot' access with mobile 2G and 3G networks.
Intel has formed an 'Innovation Alliance' with 12 Asian computer manufacturers. Intel said the alliance is working on improving battery life, performance, small form factors and connections to wireless networks for laptop computers.
Agere Systems and Infineon Technologies have formed a broad alliance to jointly develop high-performance chips based on the 802.11 standard. This technology offers 20 times higher bandwidth than current wireless networks that only reach rates up to 54 Mbps. The collaboration between Agere and Infineon includes intellectual property licensing and a mutual supply agreement. The companies said they will independently market next-generation wireless LAN products.
Invensys, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola, and Philips have formed a non-profit corporation to drive the creation and further development of the ZigBee wireless connectivity standard. The ZigBee wireless connectivity solution will be embedded in consumer electronics, home and building automation, industrial controls, PC peripherals, medical sensor applications, and toys. The ZigBee Alliance members will focus on developing interoperable wireless appliances and devices to provide customers with a greater choice of cost-effective, easy to use and reliable wireless solutions.
Industry
In-Stat/MDR has forecast that the worldwide semiconductor market is projected to grow 18,1% next year over 2002. In total, the worldwide IC market is projected to hit $139,1 bn in 2002, up only 0,1% over 2001, but according to In-Stat, the IC market could reach $164,2 bn in 2003, up 18,1% over 2002.
The market for Organic Light Emitting Displays (OLEDs) will grow from $85m in 2002 to $3bn in 2007, propelled by mobile phone, PDA, and camera applications, according to the third annual OLED Technology Report, produced by market research and consulting firm DisplaySearch. By 2007, OLEDs are expected to hold a greater than a 4% share of the flat panel display market.
In-Stat/MDR has reported that unit shipments of flash memory have now experienced several successive months of growth after hitting a low-point during the third quarter of last year. While it will take slightly longer for revenues to return to positive growth, the research firm believes that it will have happened in this past quarter, with worldwide flash memory revenues forecast to grow by 21,8% in 2Q 02. In total, the worldwide flash memory market is forecast to grow from $7 604,5m in 2001 to $16 274,2m by 2006, translating to a CAGR of 16,4%. However, growth will slow considerably by 2006 as the industry enters into another lowdown. In terms of revenue, flash memory will be dominated by the 32-Megabit and above category through 2006. In unit shipments, the 8-16 Megabit category, which currently dominates, will be replaced by the 32 Megabit and above category. Intel, followed by AMD, will continue to control the market's destiny. Last year, says InStat, these two companies, alone, accounted for 37,4% of all worldwide flash memory product dollar shipments.
ARM Holdings has announced, along with its third quarter results, that it is laying off about 10% of its workforce - the first time the company has had to reduce its headcount. ARM reported sales of £33,3m, down 23% on the second quarter (£43,2m) and 11% down on the third quarter of 2001. However, ARM said it continues to be profitable, having made £8m in the third quarter, down from £12,9m for the same period last year.
Home powerline networking technologies proponent, the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, has released plans for its next technical specification version. The new HomePlug AV specification will be designed to support distribution of data and multistream entertainment, including high definition television (HDTV) and standard definition television (SDTV) throughout the home.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced that it will begin interoperability certification testing of 5 GHz IEEE 802.11a-based wireless LAN products.
A US District Court has ruled that Intel's Itanium-based products infringe Intergraph's patented technology for defining key aspects of parallel instruction computing (PIC). The judge ruled that Intergraph's patents are 'valid and enforceable' and that Intel's products 'literally infringe' two claims of the '028 patent and seven claims of the '003 patent. The court's finding obligates Intel to pay Intergraph $150m in liquidated damages. Upon payment, Intel then has three options: pay an additional $100m to Intergraph and receive a licence for the PIC patents; or appeal the District Court decision and, if the appeal is lost, pay Intergraph an additional $100m; or thirdly, try to design around the infringement.
Agere Systems has announced it has filed a patent infringement suit against Intersil over wireless local area networking (WLAN) technology. The suit concerns six of Agere's WLAN patents.
A new study indicates that e-mail addresses are changed at the rate of 31% annually, causing 53% of those consumers to lose touch with personal and professional contacts, as well as preferred websites. The survey, conducted by research firm NFO WorldGroup, identified that half of all website relationships are lost, on average, due to e-mail address changes. According to the study, e-mail address turnover is driven by ISP switching, job changes and consumer efforts to avoid spam.
Technology
Lucent Technologies's R&D arm, Bell Labs, has designed two prototype chips that it claims can enable wireless data at 19,2 Mbps. The chips are based on a multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) wireless network technology, which has been dubbed 'Bell Labs Layered Space-Time' (BLAST). The chips are able to receive data in a 3G mobile network at 19,2 Mbps, compared to top speeds of roughly 2,5 Mbps currently envisioned for 3G networks. BLAST uses multiple antennas at the terminal and base station, enabling the higher transmission rates when the multiple antennas are present at both ends. A single user's data stream is split into multiple sub-streams that are transmitted at the same frequency, it said.
Via Technologies has described at the Microprocessor Forum, more details about its next-generation C3 microprocessor. Based on a new and so-called 'Alternate Instruction Set' (AIS) technology, the 'Nehemiah' is a 1 to 1,5 GHz processor, built around copper-interconnect technology.
Mitsubishi Electric is developing a single-chip power line communication IC to enable cost-effective smart home networking. Developed in cooperation with Microsoft and ITRAN Communications, the M306S chip will provide consumer original equipment manufacturers with an 'off-the-shelf' IC that will let them offer UPnP-like (universal plug-&-play) functionality in consumer products where an IP stack is cost-prohibitive. Products designed using the M306S will enable interoperability of home-control devices, allowing consumers to manage all their SCP-enabled home appliances and equipment via the Internet. SCP is a lightweight, royalty-free protocol for device networking, home control and smart appliances.
IBM researchers claim they have built and operated the world's smallest working computer circuits using an approach called the 'molecule cascade' technique. The circuits were made by creating a precise pattern of carbon monoxide molecules on a copper surface. Individual molecules move across an atomic surface like 'toppling dominoes'. The scientists said they have constructed working digital-logic elements 260 000 times smaller than those used in today's most advanced chips. The most complex circuit built is a 12 x 17 nm three-input sorter (enhanced photo shown) - so small that 190 billion could fit on a standard pencil-top eraser.
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