Southern Africa
The ICT sectors in South Africa have returned to health, according to the 2005 edition of the Map of the IT and Telecoms Sector (MITTS), a study from independent research houses World Wide Worx, Razor's Edge Business Intelligence and Trigrammic. According to the group, the tide of loss-making by public ICT companies has turned. This is partly due to the delisting of some of the worst-performing companies, but mainly a result of better management and a better economic environment. While four of the 37 listed companies included in the survey made a loss in 2004, this is down from more than a quarter in 2001, and compares well with other sectors. The report's market analysis of listed ICT shares shows that ICT companies' share prices increased by 30% in 2004, compared to the American tech-heavy Nasdaq index falling by more than 10% in the same period. "These figures confirm the conclusion of this report - that technology is once more a healthy business in South Africa," says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx. "This is great news both for the ICT sector and for the economy as a whole."
Avnet Kopp has expanded its line card to include Mitsubishi Power Semiconductors. The Mitsubishi product range includes IGBT modules and high voltage diode modules, with a focus on intelligent power modules (IPMs) that incorporate the drive, control and protection circuitry in a single unit.
Schauenburg Flexadux, (incorporating Gas Detection Instrumentation and Stratosat) has relocated to new larger premises at 24 Spartan Road, Aeroport, Isando. Tel: +27 (011) 974 0006 and +27 (0)11 398 2600. The company is a local designer and manufacturer of electronic gas detection instrumentation, ventilation products for the mining industry as well as a supplier of satellite communication products.
Memec SA's Johannesburg branch has relocated to Gateway Park (Suite 18, Block B), cnr Columbia and Challenger Ave, International Business Gateway, cnr Sixth and New Roads, Midrand, Gauteng. Tel: +27 (0)11 318 3415 and fax: +27 (0)11 318 1751. Postal address: Box 1650, Midrand, 1685.
Overseas
Business
Intel has reported first-quarter revenue of $9,4 bn, up 17% year-on-year and down 2% sequentially. Q1 net income was $2,2 bn, up 25% year-on-year and up 1% sequentially. Intel said strong demand for its mobile products resulted in it posting double-digit revenue and profit growth versus a year ago. Intel will increase capital spending for 2005 to between $5,4 to $5,8 bn, higher than the previous expectation of between $4,9 to $5,3 bn.
For first quarter 2005 Philips recorded net income of 117m euro compared with net income of 550m euro in the same period of 2004. It said the 433m euro decrease in net income was due to a 435m euro lower contribution from unconsolidated companies. Sales amounted to 6635m euro and were flat compared to Q1 2004. The weaker US dollar and dollar-related currencies, as well as various divestments, had a downward effect of 2%, it said. In the semiconductor division, nominal sales decreased by 3% compared to Q1 2004. Sequentially, sales declined to stand at 1,01 bn euro on which the division made an income of 14m euro.
Fairchild Semiconductor reported Q1 sales of $362,8m, a 9% decrease from Q1 of 2004 and 4% lower than the prior quarter. It reported a first quarter net loss of $10,4m compared to net income of $13,0m in the like period of 2004 and net income of $15,8m in the prior quarter. Fairchild's earnings were affected by a $4,1m restructuring charge related to employee severance. Fairchild reported strong demand for products serving the computing, power supply and communications end markets, while orders for displays, monitors, and consumer products were weaker.
Samsung Electronics announced that its first quarter 2005 net income dropped 18% from the previous quarter, to $1,5 bn. The company recorded overall sales of about $13,6 bn, a 0,6% decrease from the prior quarter. Sales and operating income in Samsung's semiconductor business for the quarter decreased sequentially by 6% and 13% respectively to $4,41 bn and $1,36 bn, respectively, because of seasonal factors and currency exchange rates.
Companies
TDK has announced that it has sold its US-based semiconductor unit to Golden Gate Capital, a private equity firm based in San Francisco. The acquired company will likely be renamed. TDK Semiconductor designs and manufactures analog and mixed-signal IC products for consumer, communications, and industrial applications.
Rohde & Schwarz has acquired Hameg of Germany, absorbing all Hameg employees. R&S intends to expand its presence in the lower price test and measurement sector, according to the company.
Silicon Storage Technology (SST), a Flash memory supplier, is to acquire substantially all of Actrans Systems, a Taiwanese startup focusing on Flash memory and EEPROMs, for about $20m. SST plans to incorporate Actrans' split-gate NAND Flash technology into its lineup of licensable IP.
Printed circuit board supplier Merix has announced it has signed an agreement to acquire the operations of Hong Kong-based PCB maker, Eastern Pacific Circuits (EPC), for $120m. Merix, based in the US, manufactures advanced, multilayer rigid boards.
Agere Systems has exited the radio-frequency (RF) LDMOS chip market, selling its product line to Ciclon Semiconductor Device. LDMOS (laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor) is a high voltage technology that supports high power applications ranging in frequency from 400 MHz to 3 GHz.
Advanced Micro Devices has announced plans to consolidate its microprocessor units into one group to be called the Microprocessor Solutions Sector (MSS). This would combine the company's x86-based processors for PC and embedded applications into one unit.
Royal Philips Electronics has transferred its mobile display systems (MDS) activities from its 'Semiconductors' Division to 'Other Activities'. Through this transfer, Philips said it aims to simplify the structure of its Semiconductors activities and enable the Semiconductors management team to focus on improving its core operations.
Mentor Graphics has joined the Consumer Electronics-ATA (CE-ATA) Working Group, and is beginning the development of storage intellectual property based on the 1.0 version of the specification. CE-ATA is focused on a lower cost implementation for storage devices targeting the consumer electronics market. Mentor Graphics intends to develop CE-ATA IP for System-on-Chip (SoC) designs for the 2,5" and sub-2,5" HDD market.
Rambus has signed a patent license agreement with NEC Electronics that allows the development and manufacture of memory controllers based on Rambus' IP.
Cambridge Display Technology and Delta Optoelectronics are jointly establishing a pilot production line in Taiwan to make full colour polymer light emitting diode (P-OLED) displays using inkjet printing.
Electroluminescent (EL) display firm Pelikon, based in Cambridge, is working with Kodak UK, to learn how phosphors work. According to the companies, the light emission mechanism is rather poorly understood despite ubiquitous use of phosphors. A better understanding may result in facilitating the production of other colours.
Industry
Semico Research has predicted a 3% drop in revenue for the DRAM industry in 2005. The firm projects that the DRAM industry will pick up and grow 2,6% in 2006.
The growing demand for VoIP and high-definition video services is expected to drive the worldwide DSL, cable modem, and PON (passive optical networks) semiconductor markets past the $2 bn sales mark by 2009, according to a recent IDC report. DSL deployment will be accelerated by adoption of higher-speed ADSL2+ technology and VDSL2 for shorter copper loops, said the research firm. PON deployment is primarily centred in Japan today.
Integrated Device Technology (IDT) has announced that it plans to close its IC assembly and test facility in Manila, the Philippines.
The US broadband market is expected to reach an estimated 56,9 million subscribers by 2008, growing from 32,5 million in 2004, according to the 2005 Telecommunications Market Review and Forecast, an annual study by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA).
Based on infrastructure deployments and other developments in recent quarters, it appears that 3G has been accepted. According to market research firm, In-Stat, in terms of actual deployments, the second quarter of last year was a record for 3G deployment when a total of 18 deployments went commercial. Although many early 3G services were clearly flops, the firm said the technology continues to improve, and a wealth of new services is on the horizon.
The Semiconductor Test Consortium has announced its support of the IEEE Standard Test Interface Language Committee (STIL), an industry consortium of IC makers and automatic test equipment manufacturers committed to defining a focused standard for test language interfaces. The group is promoting the development and implementation of the STIL standard, and is actively working on the convergence of the Open Semiconductor Test Architecture (Openstar) software with the STIL standard.
The IEEE has approved work to begin on an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless local area networks (WLAN). The project will involve a WLAN standard amendment for WLAN devices to support protection of management frames. IEEE P802.11w will provide enhancements to the IEEE 802.11 Medium Access Control layer to make available mechanisms that enable data integrity, data origin authenticity, replay protection and data confidentiality for selected IEEE 802.11 management frames.
A meeting held at the headquarters of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has developed links between European and Latin American organisations focusing on interoperability profiles for public sector initiatives, such as e-government. As a result, @METIS will focus on the creation of a Latin America/European think tank on services and applications, encouraging a network of public and private sector stakeholders from both regions and the joint development of specifications and profiles when relevant.
According to reports, China is promoting, via a new group called the AVS Alliance, its locally-developed audio and video coding standard known as AVS, as the Chinese standard. It is, however, also holding discussions with the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) over co-operation.
Mobile communications infrastructure vendors and carriers, impatiently waiting to offer their customers mobile broadband services, would do well to consider HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) as an economical alternative. The prerequisites, according to Edward Rerisi, vice president of ABI Research, are the rollouts of the next-generation UMTS networks that are starting to take place in many regions. Although WiMAX will most likely be offered mainly in dense metropolitan areas, says Rerisi, and while it will be faster and cheaper per bit than HSDPA, the upfront deployment costs are much, much higher.
According to the 12 April issue of 'Neurology', the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology, a new Danish study has found no link between use of cellphones and the risk of developing a brain tumour. The study questioned 427 people with brain tumours and 822 people without brain tumours about their cellphone use. It found no increased risk for brain tumours related to cellphone use, frequency of use, or number of years of use.
Wolfson Microelectronics of Edinburgh has decided to pursue growth in the area of power management chips under its 'Audio Plus' strategy. Wolfson will release Audio-plus solutions featuring increased mixed-signal integration for portable multimedia electronics. In the next year, Wolfson said it intends to not only release new, integrated mixed-signal audio semiconductors to leverage its existing analog technologies into emerging markets, but will also develop complementary analog strengths to reach into existing markets.
Technology
Freescale Semiconductor has produced the world's first single-source ZigBee-compliant platform. TUV Rheinland of North America, has confirmed Freescale's platform conforms to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and the ZigBee specification. The ZigBee technology will enable wireless products for a variety of monitoring, sensing, automation and control applications in the home, commercial and industrial environments. ZigBee is seen as an attractive solution for wireless applications that need long battery life, cost-effective connectivity and easy deployment.
Intel has announced that several computer manufacturers have now begun selling PCs based on its first dual-core processor-based platform. Intel's first dual-core processor-based platform includes the Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840 running at 3,2 GHz and the Intel 955X Express Chipset.
A major obstacle in Wi-Fi roaming: the time taken to hand off from one Wi-Fi wireless network to the next; can be dramatically shortened according to computer scientists at the University of California who have a patent pending on the algorithm behind SyncScan, a process to achieve practical, fast handoff for 802.11 infrastructure networks. Instead of looking for stronger signals only when the current RF signal is running low, a Wi-Fi device with SyncScan regularly checks signal strengths nearby - but for only brief intervals. These times are picked to precisely coincide with regularly-scheduled beacon messages sent by all standard Wi-Fi access points.
AMD has launched the first dual-core versions of its popular 64-bit Opteron server processor.
Fabless semiconductor company, Ageia Technologies, has launched a microprocessor device intended to give games software the ability to support more life-like action and graphics. Ageia's PhysX is a multithreading chip that it touts as supporting calculation of these physical effects: rigid body dynamics; universal collision detection; finite element analysis; soft body dynamics; fluid dynamics; and simulation of hair and clothing.
Linear Technology has announced that all of its products are now available in lead-free versions as an ordering option. After evaluating various lead-free alternatives, it chose 'Matte Tin' as the optimal plating for its lead-free products. It believes that this provides the best drop-in replacement since it has the lowest reflow temperature of the lead-free alternatives, has excellent solderability performance, and provides excellent quality and reliability.
US physicists claim to have built the fastest ever heterojunction bipolar transistor. Developed by Walid Hafez and Milton Feng at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the device is made from the indium phosphide and indium gallium arsenide and is able to operate at a frequency over 600 GHz. The two materials are graded across the collector, base and emitter, a structure that helps to reduce transit time and improve current density. The grading allows a lower bandgap in selected areas, and this permits faster electron flow in the collector, say the researchers. The work demonstrates the feasibility of transistors able to operate at several terahertz, which could be used in ultrafast communications, high-speed computing, medical imaging and sensors.
Toshiba has unveiled a new display technology that allows 3D images to be viewed on a flatbed display without any need for special glasses. When viewing the display from an angle, 3D images can be seen that stand out several centimetres from the surface. Some existing 3D displays work by projecting slightly different images to each eye - a form of visual stereo using micro-lenses that control the direction of light emission. However, the viewing angle is limited and it is tiring to view. The new Toshiba display uses an integral imaging system that produces light beams similar to those produced by a real object, not a visual representation. In the illustration, the top picture shows the display viewed from the left. In the lower picture, viewed from the right, the bottle with yellow and orange lid is real, while the other objects are generated by the display. Viewing angles are claimed to be as wide as 30°, and from over 30 cm, said Toshiba.
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version