Southern Africa
Saab Avitronics, a new business unit formed by Avitronics and SaabTech, part of Saab of Sweden, will begin operations on 1 July 2005. The new joint organisation is a supplier of avionics and electronic warfare (EW) systems and comprises 1250 employees in two countries. Says Björn Erman, president of SaabTech: "Our product range will have a unique width, and our combined track record when it comes to markets and platforms, is outstanding. By combining our resources and operating as a joint business unit we will further strengthen our competitiveness and market position worldwide." Saab Avitronics offers a broad product range in the EW-area, for air, land and naval applications; self-protection systems and a range of countermeasures dispensing systems, missile approach, laser and radar warning systems, jammers and systems for electronic intelligence. Saab Avitronics will also have in its product portfolio safety-critical utility and control systems, mission systems, such as reconnaissance and display systems, and a wide range of modular avionics, for fighters, helicopters, transport as well as commercial aircraft.
Overseas
Business
Agilent Technologies may be looking to sell its semiconductor-products division, according to a report that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. By selling the unit, electronics and test equipment maker Agilent could refocus on areas such as the test-and-measurement industry, the report of 6 June said. The journal estimated that the semiconductor business could fetch about $1,5-$2 bn or more.
National Semiconductor reported sales of $467m in its fourth fiscal quarter, up 4% from the third quarter but down 18% from the like period a year ago. The company reported a GAAP net income of $132,1m in the fourth quarter, compared to $94,2m in the same period a year ago. Its fourth quarter results included an $86,1m write-off of goodwill, a $51,1m gain from the sale of its PC Super/IO business, and a $2,6m charge for cost reduction actions. National said Q4 worldwide bookings increased 12% sequentially, but fell 29% from a year ago.
Companies
Integrated Device Technology (IDT) has announced plans to acquire Integrated Circuit Systems (ICS) for $1,7 bn. The companies intend to provide a platform for growth within the communications, computing, and consumer markets. The combined company will retain the IDT name.
AMIS Holdings, the parent company of AMI Semiconductor, has acquired the semiconductor division of Flextronics for $135m. Flextronics Semiconductor specialises in custom mixed-signal products, imaging sensors and digital ASICs, including FPGA conversion products.
Teledyne Technologies has announced that its Teledyne Investment subsidiary has entered into an agreement to acquire Cougar Components for $26,5m. Cougar Components supplies standard RF and microwave amplifiers for space, military, and test equipment applications.
Remec has announced that it has completed the sale of its Defense & Space subsidiary to Chelton Microwave for around $260m. Chelton Microwave is a member of the Chelton Group of companies, which is part of Cobham, a publicly traded, UK aerospace and defence company.
TDK has completed the acquisition of Amperex Technology, a Hong Kong-based Li-polymer battery manufacturer. Through this purchase, TDK enters the Li-polymer battery market for the first time.
Integration Associates has acquired CompXs, a developer of low power, mesh network solutions. Integration will combine its transceiver technology with CompXs' fully ZigBee-compliant platform comprised of networking software stack, development tools, and application-ready system modules.
JDS Uniphase, an optical components and systems supplier, has acquired Photonic Power Systems, a provider of photonic power for the delivery of power over fibre. Photonic power is a power delivery system whereby light from a laser source illuminates a highly efficient photovoltaic power converter to produce electrical power. It delivers isolated power that is immune to RF, EMI, high voltage and lightning.
Richardson Electronics has secured global distribution rights to American Technical Ceramics' (ATC) current portfolio of EIA ceramic and signature ATC porcelain high-Q capacitors.
Aegis Semiconductor has spun off its RedShift Systems unit as an independent company to provide low-cost, high-performance thermal imagers to the mass market.
RF transistor manufacturer, Peak Devices, has acquired certain assets related to Agere Systems' RF power LDMOS portfolio. This includes the production wafers, die, packages, lids and select specialised assembly equipment for the manufacture and support of transistors that produce more than 10 W of RF power.
e2v technologies has been awarded the flight phase contract to supply the European Space Agency with CCD imaging sensors for the primary scientific instrument on its high profile GAIA space mission. Anticipated for launch in 2011, GAIA aims to map the Milky Way galaxy, to create the largest, most accurate 3D map of the galaxy to date. The contract is worth 14,3m Euro over the next three years and involves the manufacture of some of the highest performance large area CCD image sensors ever produced.
Voxtel has announced it has been awarded a $750 000 contract by the US Air Force Research Laboratory to develop high-speed, microwave circuits made of nanocrystals embedded in polymers for high-speed photodetectors. Rather than use silicon or other high-speed semiconductors, Voxtel's detectors use quantum dots - particles a few nanometers in size and made out of a variety of semiconductor materials. The small size results in new quantum phenomena that yield a number of extraordinary bonuses. Applications include telecoms, optical communications, improved night vision cameras, and optical signal processing.
Rambus has given IBM a licence to use its XDR memory controller interface cell, dubbed XIO.
Intel, IBM, and Synopsys have announced a collaboration to bring EDA tools onto Centrino-based wireless LAN capable mobile computers, aimed at increasing the productivity and flexibility for design engineers. Under the terms, Synopsys plans to perform a technology and market assessment of 'mobile-aware' design applications with selected customers, and has agreed to introduce EDA applications tuned for laptop and notebook computers based on the Intel Centrino processor platform.
Epson's semiconductor operations division has licensed Sarnoff's TakeCharge on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) design IP portfolio. Epson will use TakeCharge for its high-voltage CMOS (HV-CMOS) integrated circuits, which are used as drivers for LCD panels. Epson said that TakeCharge will enable it achieve a 50% reduction in chip I/O area while maintaining robust ESD protection with the technology's 'first-time-right' design capabilities.
Fujitsu and Seiko Epson have announced they would jointly develop next-generation technology for ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) non-volatile memory. According to the agreement, the two companies intend to develop a highly integrated next-generation FRAM that is one-sixth the cell area of conventional FRAMs. They also plan to develop memory core process technology that features minimal constraints on the number of read/write cycles that can be executed.
Royal Philips Electronics and Texas Instruments have announced an agreement to cooperate on conformance testing for the technical interpretation of the EPCglobal Electronic Product Code Generation 2 RFID standard. The work aims at ensuring interoperability and accelerating market deployment of Gen 2 products, such as labels, hardware and system solutions, to offer multiple sourcing for global RFID implementations.
Cambridge Display Technology has reached an agreement with IBM to market IBM's advanced amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film-transistor (TFT) technology for organic-light-emitting-diode (OLED) displays. CDT will market IBM's IP in TFT devices, pixel circuitry, drive methods, and active-matrix OLED display modelling for display applications.
Industry
According to market research company iSuppli's latest figures, overall semiconductor sales registered $56,99 bn in the first quarter 2005, 3,1% down on the $58,79 bn chip sales it estimated for the fourth quarter of 2004. This is in line with the historical trend that the first quarter of the year is weak for the global semiconductor industry, it said. In the latest rankings the Top 10 worldwide semiconductor suppliers for the first quarter are (market share in brackets): Intel, 8,7 bn (15,2%); Samsung Electronics, 4,2 bn, (7,3%); Renesas, 2,5 bn (4,3%); Texas Instruments, 2,4 bn (4,3%); Toshiba, 2,3 bn, (4,0%); Infineon, 2,1 bn, (3,7%); STMicroelectronics, 2,1 bn, (3,7%); NEC Electronics, 1,5 bn, (2,7%); Freescale, 1,4 bn, (2,5%); Philips Semiconductors, 1,3 bn, (2,3%); and the rest, 28,5 bn (50,1%).
Citing stronger than expected chip sales, the SIA has revised its annual forecast for global IC sales to a record $226 bn in 2005. The SIA also projected a compound annual growth rate of 9,8% for the global industry through 2008. It added that global chip sales could grow to $309 bn by 2008. The group originally expected flat sales for 2005.
According to a new iSuppli report, after achieving 17,4% revenue growth in 2004, the worldwide analog IC market is decelerating in 2005 due to a slowdown in the mobile-phone market. Following a flat first half, analog revenue growth is expected to reach 5,8% for all of 2005, to $39,8 bn in 2005 from $37,6 bn in 2004. However, revenue will grow to $59 bn in 2009, it forecasts.
The market for 802.15.4, a wireless personal area networking (PAN) technology and the ZigBee specification network layer, is poised for skyrocketing growth, reports In-Stat. On an aggressive basis, 802.15.4 nodes/chipsets could grow by a 200% from 2004 to 2009, it forecasts, with annual shipments surpassing 150 million units in 2009. This low-cost, low-power, low-data-rate networking technology is receiving attention from many companies that are involved in industrial control, home automation, and commercial building control, spanning everything from nuclear power plants to hotels.
While WiMAX has enormous potential to offer a global standardised broadband wireless platform, the market will face several hurdles in the near term, reports Northern Sky Research. Some of these include a solid migration path to 802.16e, spectrum allocation, requirements for indoor antennas, and initial high costs. These and many more hurdles must be satisfied in order for growth projections to be met, it says. The research group concludes that early struggles in the space will, however, likely subside over time and WiMAX will post significant gains over the next three to five years.
Market research firm, DisplaySearch, has reported that the continuing explosion in mobile and portable electronics helped drive sales of small displays up 17% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2005. The firm expects small displays (up to 10") market sales to reach $21,3 bn for the year, up 11% from 2004.
iSuppli has reported that healthy market conditions are allowing semiconductor suppliers to burn off their excess inventory, bringing chip stockpiles nearly back to a state of equilibrium. The value of excess semiconductor inventories are expected to decline to less than $500m by the end of the second quarter, down 21% from the end of the first quarter.
ACG Identification Technologies has announced that it is supplying contactless RFID readers to the Belgian government for the country's pioneering e-passport program. Belgium is the first European government that has started issuing to its citizens electronic, biometrically-enabled passports that fully comply with the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
Time Group, which sells PCs under the Time and Tiny brands in the UK, has signed an agreement with Dubai Silicon Oasis to build and manage the largest factory to assemble personal computers, LCD monitors and plasma TVs in the Middle East. The new Dubai multipurpose high tech factory will produce, at full capacity, more than 1 million units and employ more than 1200 people.
According to news agency AFP, cellphone giant Nokia is being sued by Finnish inventor, Jari Lahtinen, for infringing on a patent for technology allowing cellphone users to answer their phones without touching them. The Finnish patent office reportedly gave Lahtinen sole usage of the concept of answering a phone by 'touching a button in the hands-free device or through voice control'. The case relates only to the use of the technology in Finland, apparently. Nokia is seeking to invalidate the patent, it said.
Technology
PolyIC, a joint venture created by Kurz and Siemens, has developed a polymer-based rectifier diode that works at frequencies beyond 13 MHz. The diode consists of a Schottky diode made from polythiophene (P3HT). The company says the device is stable under ambient conditions and is a step towards the realisation of low-cost plastic RFID tags that operate at 13,56 MHz.
Freescale Semiconductor has unveiled an applications processor that it claims will redefine mobile multimedia entertainment. The i.MX31 emphasises low power consumption and security. The processor is based on an ARM 11 running at 532 MHz, and is augmented by Freescale's Smart Speed Technology that leverages parallelism to maximise the effective cycles per instruction.
Thine Electronics of Japan has developed a serial interface technology called 'V-by-One' capable of transmitting digital pixel (image) data as far as 10 m without signal degradation through a single differential cable. The company's first transmitter/receiver chip can transmit 18-bit data and 4-bit control data through a single differential cable with a wide frequency range of 5 MHz to 40 MHz. Thine says the technique also enables a drastic 90% reduction in the number of cables required. Target applications are typically automotive cameras, consumer electronics, and security cameras.
Toshiba, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (also known as Verbatim) and Hayashibara Biochemical Laboratories, an organic dye company, have announced the development of the first recordable HD DVD format - HD DVD-R - that can also be produced in current DVD-R production lines. The disks use the practical 7 to 10 mW laser power, and in a stability test, the group claims no deterioration is observed after more than 1 million cycles.
Freescale has started sampling radio subsystems that it claims will enable dramatically smaller 3G mobile devices. Packing its RF and analog baseband technology for Edge and 3G Wideband-CDMA into four chips, Freescale claims to have cut the number of components required by 70% and put the radios into 649 mm² area. The four chips include a MM6029 power amplifier module and the MMM6000 analog baseband chip on the Edge side. The W-CDMA portion of the signal chain includes the MMM6032 PA module, which feeds the MMM6007 analog baseband with digital interface.
Samsung Electronics has announced that it has manufactured a 40-inch OEL (organic electroluminescent) display using a single substrate. Claimed to be the world's largest single substrate OEL display Samsung used large format TFT LCD manufacturing technology with a 730 x 920 mm glass substrate. OEL displays do not need backlight which is normally required for LCDs and it also has the advantages of excellent video display capability and wide viewing angles. When it is assembled into a display, the thickness can be as thin as 3 cm.
Zarlink Semiconductor has unveiled a transceiver chip designed exclusively for wireless communication systems that link implanted medical devices with base stations. Claimed to be a first, the ZL70100 ultra low-power transceiver chip fully meets the MICS standard (402 to 405 MHz band) as defined by the FCC and ETSI. Zarlink's RF technology allows 500 Kbps data transmission over a typical two-metre range. Traditional implanted communication systems rely on magnetic coupling between coils in an in-body device and a base station - an approach giving only a few tens of Kbps and ranges up to 10 cm.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have reported another development towards complex, nanoscale electronic devices that can be directed to assemble themselves automatically - a development that could allow mass-production of 'nanochips' having circuit elements only a few molecules across. The researchers describe how carefully chosen mixtures of polymers can be made to assemble themselves into nanoscale patterns that turn corners and exhibit other complex geometries. Their approach builds upon a similar technique they demonstrated two years ago, using a simpler mix of polymers that could self-assemble only into regular, straight-line patterns of stripes.
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