Southern Africa
Zest Electric Motors and Drives has become a black-empowered company. In a cash transaction Medu Capital purchased 26% of the electric motor supplier.
Harris Corporation has received a $29 m order from MTN Nigeria to supply, design and implement Harris MegaStar 1:4 radios for MTN's high-capacity backhaul GSM network. The follow-on order augments a $24m February contract for microwave equipment and services.
Catalogue distributor, RS Components, has made product donations to False Bay College and College of Cape Town. The Good Hope campus of False Bay College in Khayelitsha received engineering components to the value of R150 000. The equipment, which consists of electrical, electronic and industrial components, was donated by the firm in an effort to give students from previously disadvantaged communities access to training on state-of-the-art equipment. The College of Cape Town, Guguletu Campus received approximately R200 000 worth of electrical, industrial, mechanical and test and measurement components and equipment for both light and heavy current training.
Overseas
Business
Advanced Micro Devices reported sales of $1,262 bn in the second quarter of 2004, up 96% from the second quarter of 2003 and an increase of 2% from the first quarter of 2004. Net income was $32m for the quarter, compared to a net loss of $140m, for the like period a year ago. In the first quarter of 2004, it posted net income of $45m.
Intel reported net income of $1,8 bn on sales of $8,05 bn in the second quarter, an approximately flat result sequentially, but up 18% year-over-year. Revenue in the third quarter is expected to be between $8,6 bn and $9,2 bn, the company said.
Philips recorded net income of Euro 616m compared with net income of Euro 42m in the same period last year. Sales amounted to Euro 7280m, an increase of 11% over the same period last year. Philips said the weaker US dollar and dollar-related currencies had a downward effect of 3%. Comparable sales increased by 14%. Income from operations was a profit of Euro 356m, compared with a loss of Euro 26m in Q2 2003.
Exar announced revenues were $16,3m in the quarter, down 8,8% sequentially from $17,9m in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2004 and up 1,7% from $16,0m for the same period last year. Net income was $1,3m for Q1, as compared to $1,5m for the Q1 of fiscal 2004.
Companies
Teledyne, through its subsidiary Teledyne Wireless, has entered into an agreement to acquire Celeritek's defence electronics business for $33m in cash. Celeritek's defence electronics business designs and manufactures gallium arsenide-based RF and microwave components and subassemblies for electronic warfare, radar and other military applications.
Corning has agreed to sell its frequency control business to Vectron International. Corning Frequency Control (CFC), part of Corning's telecommunications segment, designs and manufactures precision crystal oscillators, resonators, and filters.
Kodak has taken a controlling interest of Japanese camera manufacturer, Chinon and has changed the name to Kodak Digital Product Center.
Telecommunications provider, Telenor, of Norway, has chosen Ericsson as a supplier of microwave transmission for all its group affiliates worldwide. Under the agreement, Ericsson will provide all of the company's affiliates, primarily in Europe and Asia, with Mini-Link point-to-point microwave transmission, including high capacity radios and smart traffic nodes.
Cypress Semiconductor and Atmel have partnered on wireless USB. Atmel said it will license Cypress's WirelessUSB technology and algorithms, a step toward open standardisation of the technology. Atmel will manufacture and sell the chips based on Cypress's 2,4 GHz WirelessUSB technology.
Nantero, a developer of a carbon nanotube non-volatile memory system, and BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration, a supplier of rad-hard ASICs, are collaborating on carbon nanotube-based electronic devices for use in advanced defence and aerospace systems. Benefits of carbon-nanotube-based technology include much reduced power consumption and enhanced radiation tolerance.
Infineon Technologies has joined two important automotive technology groups, the FlexRay consortium and the Autosar group. FlexRay is a standardising effort for a fault-tolerent automotive hardware bus system while the Autosar technology development group defines the software interfaces.
Invensys Systems' business unit, Wonderware, has entered into the advanced process control (APC) market for semiconductor manufacturing with ArchestrA, a product that enables a realtime view of tools and lots being processed.
Nokia and STMicroelectronics have introduced the Standard Mobile Imaging Architecture (SMIA) 1.0 specification, which defines the mechanical design, high speed serial interface, performance characterisations and functional behaviour of camera modules used in mobile handsets. The spec ( www.smia-forum.org) is said to be the first attempt in the industry to set the directions for camera modules.
Industry
The 'actual' worldwide chip sales in May 2004 were $16,82 bn, about half a billion dollars below the $17,32 bn three-month average announced by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and up 39,1% from the 'actual' sales in May 2003. Chip sales in the first five months of 2004 were $81,46 bn up 35,2% on the $60,3 bn recorded in the first five months of 2003. The numbers showed a gently accelerating growth for the year.
By the end of 2009, there will be more than 7 million subscribers worldwide using broadband wireless services based on 802.16REVd technology, the fixed flavour of WiMAX, according to a new Parks Associates report.
Raytheon has won a further US navy satellite contract. Raytheon will produce additional submarine high data rate (Sub HDR) multiband satellite communication systems under a multiyear contract worth up to $50m. The first year contract is worth $33m. Sub HDR links submariners to the Global Broadcast Service, the Milstar satellite constellation, and the Defense Satellite Communication System, via a unique mast antenna that connects them to the above-sea world.
Agere Systems is supporting a baseline wireless networking specification that establishes ultrafast data streams for wireless HDTV transmissions as well as high-density user environments for corporate and retail wireless networks. Its IEEE802.11n protocol can deliver a raw datarate of 500 Mbps, roughly 10 times faster than today's wireless LANs, it says. Agere's 802.11n submission focuses on two techniques to drive higher datarates and spectral efficiency: multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques, as well as wide bandwidth channels.
Belgian research institute IMEC is proposing three novel forms of memory architecture for research. The three memory types are: direct tunnelling RAM; a ferroelectric field effect transistor; and a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) floating body cell. IMEC has invited companies and researchers to collaborate in a research programme for embedded RAM. IMEC said the three concepts will be implemented in silicon by the end of 2004 to demonstrate their feasibility.
Intersil has announced it is consolidating activities and streamlining costs in its manufacturing and support functions. Intersil said it expects annualised savings of over $14m as a result of these actions. It will reinvest a significant portion of the savings in research and development and field sales efforts. Intersil also announced it would open new sales and technology centres near its largest potential global customers.
Atmel has extended its Dresden Design Center in Germany by adding 32 new engineers to the 12 designers who have been part of the Atmel team for the last three years. Atmel has also increased the size of its location, and is building up a new laboratory. Atmel hopes to deliver even more cost-effective wireless devices, especially in the area of ZigBee, GPS and future wireless programmes.
In recognition of its breakthrough low cost solution that provides high-accuracy location-based information to mobile network operators, Cambridge Positioning Systems (CPS) was conferred the 2004 Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Award. Unlike technologies that rely on network-based cell-ID positioning equipment or GPS-based handsets/devices, CPS Matrix solutions use software enhancements on the network at the mobile location centre and software-enabled handsets to deliver positioning information.
Cisco Systems has announced that Guinness World Records has certified the Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS-1) as the highest capacity Internet router ever developed at 92 terabits (92 trillion bits per second) of total throughput, designed to afford up to 100 times more capacity than previously available. The Cisco CRS-1 becomes the first networking technology to be recognised by Guinness World Records, the authority on record-breaking achievement around the world.
Technology
Cavendish Kinetics has revealed a new technology it claims can offer the lowest power and entry-cost embedded non-volatile memory (NVM) in the industry. The company has working silicon of a MEMS switch engineered as a non-volatile memory element. The company's 'Nanomech' technology is capable of simple incorporation into standard CMOS and other processes and will offer a lower power, higher speed alternative to embedded Fuse, Flash and EEPROM, it says. Using MEMS, an etched conducting metal bar is suspended above a contact electrode. By introducing a charge on to the contact electrode, the bar is attracted and deformed by electrostatic forces until it touches the contact, closing the switch. The effect displays hysteresis since once in contact, the two prefer to remain in contact. It requires only 25 Picojoules to program, claims Cavendish.
Zarlink Semiconductor is researching in-body antenna designs for so-called body area networks. Zarlink is conducting the research as part of the 'Healthy Aims' European Union Framework VI project. The programme partners are developing a range of medical implants to help the ageing population and those with disabilities. Body area networks enable wireless communication from implanted medical devices to a base station up to three metres away. Zarlink's research activity will focus on antenna design and ultra low-power communications systems for implanted devices, such as hearing aids and muscle stimulators.
GE Global Research has developed what it calls 'the world's best-performing diode built from a carbon nanotube.' The diode will enable smaller and faster electronic devices with increased functionality. The nano-diode is one of the smallest functioning devices ever made, it claims. Unlike traditional diodes, GE's carbon nanotube device has the ability for multiple functions: as a diode and two different types of transistors, which should enable it to both emit and detect light. GE says its device comes very close to the theoretical limits of performance. Measured through the ideal diode equation, it has an 'ideality factor' very close to one.
Ultra wideband (UWB) has received a lot of press recently for personal area networking and connectivity. But that is not the whole story according to ABI Research; there are a number of other uses for the fledgling format, which have nothing to do with the sub 5 to 10 m space. These include precision location-finding and asset tracking; intrusion detection; collision and obstacle avoidance, and many more. DARPA, for instance, is interested in robust anti-jam sensor networks and handheld communications systems for combat use, and it appears that UWB will fill the bill. Also, construction vehicles may be fitted with rear-facing UWB radar sensors to warn of nearby obstacles. UWB systems have a number of advantages: their signals are low-power, especially in low data rate systems which makes them difficult to detect, and they are wide bandwidth which makes them harder to jam.
Intel is aiming to introduce a billion-transistor chip in 2005, rather than the original target date of 2007. Announced at a conference at the recent Semicon West exhibition, Intel said it had advanced its original goal by a couple of years.
IMEC has developed a miniature 1 cm3 3-dimensional stacked system-in-a-cube (SiC) for wireless bioelectronic communications systems. The low-power 3D SiC, which comprises a radio and DSP, has broad application in a variety of wireless products, ranging from monitors for human-body information, to environmental data. The bioelectronics breakthrough will be first incorporated into a wearable, wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) co-developed by IMEC and the University Hospital Leuven, Belgium. The SiC was developed as part of IMEC's Human++ program, which envisions similar SiCs as sensor nodes constituting a 'body area network' (BAN). BANs will be used to gather vital body information into a central intelligent node, which in turn will communicate wirelessly with a base station.
Nonprofit research institute, SRI International, has announced that Carnegie Mellon University has selected SRI's pioneering 'Shakey' robot for induction into its Robot Hall of Fame. Shakey was the first autonomous mobile robot capable of sensing its environment and then navigating its own course. SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center (AIC) developed Shakey over a six-year period beginning in 1966. The first mobile robot to visually interpret its environment, Shakey can locate items, navigate around them, and reason about its actions. Named for its erratic and jerky style of movement, Shakey stands six feet tall and is equipped with a TV camera, a triangulating range finder, bumpers, and a wireless video system.
This picture shows 'Sol Machine 1' speeding through the Texas Motor Speedway as part of the annual Dell-Winston School Solar Car Challenge held recently in the US. Students from across the United States and Mexico compete annually with their hand-built solar cars in this event.
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