Southern Africa
For the year ended 31 March 2002, SITA, the State Information Technology Agency, has increased revenue 34% to R1,36 bn from R1,02 bn in the previous year. Net loss after tax improved 61%, down from R43,4m in 2001 to R16,9m for 2002. Operating loss more than halved from R72,6m to R30,5m. Acting CEO Ken Modise said during 2002, the business environment in which SITA operates stabilised, and there has been a significant increase in the demand for the company's products and services. He said that SITA C, the civilian unit, was the main contributor to revenue streams in 2002 and delivered excellent returns on investment. The company operates through three units: SITA C, with the focus on the civilian market; SITA D delivering defence; and SITA E certifying and procuring all ICT services and products within government. The most significant achievement during the year under review, was the establishment of the IT Acquisition Centre (ITAC), which will accelerate the implementation and co-ordination of Government IT procurement, said SITA.
Flextronics, a global provider of operational services focused on delivering design, engineering, test, manufacturing and logistics solutions to technology companies, has announced the acquisition of South African based Azisa, a global software and hardware engineering services company. Flextronics says that the acquisition will strengthen its software design service offerings and provide it with greater penetration in the telecommunications and networking industries. In addition, the deal allows Flextronics to establish design and development facilities in a low-cost region and increase its global footprint. For Azisa, the transaction gives it access to new international markets. "Flextronics' investment in Azisa significantly enhances our ability to work on world-class projects with leading-edge technical content," stated Francois Geldenhuys, Chairman and Technical Director at Azisa. "We are proud to have been chosen to play such an important role in expanding the engineering development services of an internationally-recognised organisation like Flextronics."
In a bid to enhance its automation and process control abilities, Alstom Low Voltage Equipment has acquired the exclusive distributorship of the product range formerly held by PLC Direct SA, now in liquidation. Rob Hare, sales director at CHI Control, says the integration of the PLC Direct product range and key personnel has been completed, merged with CHI's own PLC department and renamed Alstom Automation. "The move ensures continued service and support to all local customers of the DirectLOGIC and Entivity product ranges. Previously CHI Control and PLC Direct acted as dual distributors for the PLC product range. Now we can act with a unified front, building the brand as well as its market share in the local market," says Hare.
British Telecom (BT) and multinational technology innovator, Spescom, have announced the commencement of the initial roll-out of its new generation intelligent network termination device, called NTelite. Spescom developed the NTelite which it now supplies to BT. The NTelite is an electronic diagnostic device that replaces current line boxes within the home to enable intelligent remote line testing by operators. A product of a close collaboration between BT and Spescom, it will be used by BT's domestic customers. Whilst the initial roll-out, worth £20m, is for 2 million units - provided the projected benefits are obtained - it is envisaged that eventually BT will roll-out this product to all of its 23 million customers. This contract was awarded to Spescom in October 2000 and after a number of specification reviews, the product is now in production and roll-out is progressing.
Power protection equipment maker, Tripp Lite, has introduced a new Critical Application Partner (CAP) Certification Program in the Middle East and Africa. The new CAP program is designed to give high-end solution providers comprehensive product and training support designed to better service their corporate, education and government network administrators requiring larger VA UPS systems, KVM switches and other networking-related products. It says the CAP certification program gives distributors the ability to offer their customers configuration consulting on Tripp Lite SmartPro and SmartOnline UPS Systems, maintenance contracts and a Tripp Lite specific technical assistant to better support their customers.
The Molex Premise Networks, Real Time Patching System Technical Training program, has been recognised by BICSI for Continuing Education Credit (CEC). BICSI, the internationally-recognised association for standards based training for telecommunications infrastructure, provides 21 RCDD or Installer CECs for completion of the Real Time Training program. Real Time Training, offered globally by Molex Premise Networks, is a three-day program covering hardware installation, project management and implementation of the Real Time Patching System. Eugene Botes, representative for Molex Premise Networks in South Africa can be contacted on 082 854 1505 for more information.
Centurion MicroElectronics has announced that it has secured a shared agency for all Advantech product lines.
Rockwell Automation has moved its SA head office as well as its branches, to new premises - all in the space of one month.
Johannesburg: Head office, Riverview Park, Janadel Avenue, Halfway Gardens, Midrand; Box 7096, Halfway House, 1685; tel: 011 654 9700, main fax: 011 654 9701, branch fax: 011 654 9702.
Cape Town: Ground Floor, Knowledge Park, Century City, 7446; Box 143, Paarden Eiland, 7420; tel: 021 527 2900, fax: 021 527 2911.
Durban: Units 3-4 Sasfin House, No 7 - The Boulevard, Westway Office Park (off Spine Road), Westville, 3630; Box 484, Westville, 3630; tel: 031 275 8460, fax: 031 265 6771.
Overseas
Business
Maxim has reported sales of $285,9m for its fiscal first quarter ending 28 Sep, up 19,4% from $239,4m in the same quarter a year ago, and 2,1% over the $280,1m for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2002. Net income increased to $73,2m in Q1, compared to $61,3m last year, a 19,4% increase. Q1 bookings were approximately $270m, a 13% decrease from Q4's level of $310m, it reported.
Infineon Technologies has announced its fiscal 2002 results. Infineon had revenues of Euro 5,21 bn, a decrease of 8% from the previous year. The chipmaker said the revenue decrease resulted from the overall sluggish semiconductor market with substantial pricing pressure in all business groups, especially memory products. However, its Automotive & Industrial segment had its best quarterly and annual revenue performance ever. A 16% sales increase in memory products year-on-year was achieved with higher production volumes as a consequence of productivity and capacity increases as well as higher bit demand, said Infineon. These achievements were offset by a revenue decline in the communications and chipcard segments. Annual earnings before interest and taxes was a loss of Euro 1,14 bn, compared to the previous year's loss of Euro 1,02 bn, mainly due to the ongoing price pressure in the industry and to decreased demand in the communications and chipcard ICs segments. Net loss amounted to Euro 1,02 bn compared to a net loss of Euro 591m in the previous year.
Companies
Tektronix has announced it has signed an agreement to sell its optical test line to Digital Lightwave, a provider of networking solutions, for $10m in cash. Under terms of the agreement, Tektronix will sell its optical transmission test product family, including the OTS9000, OTS9010, OTS9040, OTS9100, OTS9200 and OTS9300 products.
Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) the UK developer of light emitting plastic materials has purchased the organic light emitting display (OLED) development business from Oxford-based Opsys.
Motorola has announced it will sell its little-known, Motorola Manufacturing Solutions (MMS) test equipment business to Telco, a supplier of industrial, telecom and consumer products.
Elpida Memory and Mitsubishi Electric have announced that they have reached a basic agreement to start discussing the integration of Mitsubishi's dynamic random access memory (DRAM) operations with Elpida Memory. The companies hope to integrate the DRAM business by April 2003. The agreement will also allow Elpida to form a new alliance with Powerchip Semiconductor that would serve as a foundry for Elpida's DRAM production. Elpida Memory is a NEC/Hitachi joint venture.
DuPont Displays, Sarnoff and Bell Labs have agreed to cooperate to develop new organic thin-film transistor (organic-TFT) technology on plastic substrates. The research to develop flexible displays will be sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Advanced Technology Program.
Lumileds Lighting of San Jose, California, and Japanese LED manufacturer Nichia, have signed a cross-licensing agreement to share intellectual property rights in their respective LED technologies.
EDA tools provider Mentor Graphics has entered into partnership with Sharp of Japan concerning Sharp's internally deployed hardware compilation technology, known as 'Bach'. The two companies plan to merge co-verification and hardware compilation technologies to create a new set of design optimisation and analysis tools for embedded system and system-on-chip (SoC) design for introduction in 2003.
Industry
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has released its 2002-2005 annual forecast, saying the worldwide semiconductor market will increase by 1,8% in 2002 and 19,8% in 2003, while for 2004, projects 21,7% growth. See page 4.
The European Union has finally agreed on the date to ban use of lead in electrical and electronic equipment. On 11 October it approved 'The Waste From Electrical And Electronic Equipment' (WEEE) and 'The Use Of Certain Hazardous Substances In Electrical And Electronic Equipment (RoHS) Directives'. It has been decided that four heavy metals (lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium) and the brominated flame retardants PBB and PBDE will be banned in new electronic equipment in the European Union from 1 July 2006. Existing national measures on these substances can continue to apply until that date, by which they have to be replaced by the new rules. These directives pertain to products manufactured and imported into EU member states (currently Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK).
Combined, electronics manufacturing services (EMS) and original design manufacturers (ODM) captured 20% of the electronics and IT total available market (TAM) in 2001, according to a new study by IDC. The TAM for contract manufacturing services reached $560 bn for the year. The EMS market grew 6% in the second quarter of this year. IDC believes that the year-over year recovery for the EMS industry began in the third calendar quarter of 2002. The ODM industry grew to $4,4 bn in the second calendar quarter. Overall, the accelerated growth rate was due to stronger than anticipated notebook production as well as the continued strength of some major consumer product programs, said IDC.
According to a report from Future Horizons there are still no apparent 'killer applications' that will jump-start the slumping IC market, but that could be a blessing in disguise in order to sustain a more moderate and manageable recovery in 2003. UK market research group Future Horizons believes the IC market will grow by 26,6% in 2003 over 2002, with a spread somewhere between 17-35%. It also believes that IC unit growth will jump 14,3% in 2003 over 2002, while ASPs will finally bounce back and increase by 11,3% next year.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has boosted the security of wireless LANs based on the IEEE's 802.11 standard by adding 802.1x authentication and Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP)-based encryption algorithms to its Wi-Fi Protected Access initiative.
Arizona State University (ASU) and a number of leading chip makers have announced the opening of a $6m 'microelectronics teaching factory' at the ASU East campus in Mesa, Arizona. A full-fledged, 150-mm fab, the 1400 m2, Class-100 plant will provide students with hands-on experience in the design, development and production of ICs, to prepare students for direct entry into the semiconductor industry.
The TV Linux Alliance has announced the availability of its initial specifications for use in developing digital set-top boxes, based on the Linux operating system. Version 0.8 defines the functions for RF tuners and other components and also outlines the application programming interfaces (APIs).
Intersil has filed a counterclaim against Agere Systems over wireless local area networking (WLAN) technology. The suit charges Agere with theft of trade secrets and misappropriating Intersil's 'choice medium access control (CMAC) wireless local area network (WLAN) technology.' Last month, Agere filed a WLAN patent infringement suit against Intersil regarding six Agere WLAN patents.
Messe Muenchen, owner of the biennial 'electronica' exhibition, and CMP Media, publisher and exhibition organiser, have agreed to bring electronica to the USA. 'electronicaUSA' will be run alongside the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco in 2004.
A new UK information website has been launched to provide vital information about doing business in and with the UK. The site, www.i-uk.com, draws on the most commonly asked questions about conducting business in the UK and offers clear examples of why the UK is considered to be Europe's leading business centre. The business content of i-uk.com has been developed in association with Invest UK, the UK Government's investment agency, set up to help the world's companies create or expand business from a British base.
According to a recent In-Stat/MDR report one should not believe all of the seemingly endless hype for high-end handsets like camera-phones, smartphones and world phones. The high-tech market research firm reports that, despite the myriad of marvellous features offered by top-tier handsets, these dressed up handsets have yet to find wide end-user acceptance. At present, more than 60% of handsets sold fall into the lower-end, and that is not going to change in the near term, as cost and a lack of perceived need will keep many end users from upgrading anytime soon.
Technology
Leading European design consultancy Cambridge Consultants has announced it is releasing novel silicon intellectual property (IP) to the commercial SoC and ASIC markets. Developed and refined over more than 15 years, the IP library (www.CambridgeConsultants.com/asic_library.shtml) focuses on mixed-signal building blocks including lean CMOS software-defined radio and processor cores. The new mixed-signal IP library called CCLasic incorporates three main categories of silicon IP: radio, processor, and data converter functions.
EM Microelectronic-Marin, the chip-making subsidiary of Swatch, has announced that it is preparing for production, what is believed to be the first chip operating at a guaranteed voltage lower than 0,5 V over a full temperature range. The mixed-signal circuit is implemented on a fully depleted silicon-on-insulator substrate and 0,5 µm process technology.
Iosoft has developed a microcontroller development kit that includes a reference design for interfacing a PIC microcontroller, from Microchip Technology, to an IEEE 802.11b standard wireless LAN. It is aimed at developers of products such as home appliances and vending machines, who are looking to add duplex wireless connectivity for monitoring, troubleshooting and upgrades.
Splashpower of Cambridge, England, has announced it is bringing to market a wireless battery charging technology. The company says its two-part energy-transfer system operates inductively and has cost and aesthetic advantages over contact systems. Mobile electronic products are simply placed on a pad and are recharged without cables.
Swedish startup Spirea, is sampling 'TripleTraC', a tri-band 5,8 GHz/5,2 GHz/2,4 GHz CMOS transceiver for wireless local area networks. It supports IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b standards and the draft IEEE 802.11g standard, said Spirea.
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