Overseas
Business
For the first quarter of fiscal 2008, Epcos reported sales of 367 million Euros, up 10% year-on-year but down 2% sequentially. EBIT was 28 million Euros, compared to 11 million Euros in the prior quarter and 22 million Euros in the first quarter last year. In the Capacitors and Inductors segment, sales of aluminium electrolytic capacitors and inductors remained stable. Sales of film capacitors and ferrite cores declined, primarily because of weaker demand from industrial electronics customers and distributors.
For its 2008 third quarter ended 29 December, 2007, RF Micro Devices (RFMD) reported that revenues were down approximately 4,6% year-over-year and increased 4,8% sequentially to $268,2 million. Operating loss was approximately $24,4 million or $0,06 per share on a GAAP basis, compared to operating income of $8,1 million or $0,07 per share in the prior quarter and operating income of $66,1 or $0,26 per share in the third quarter of 2007.
ON Semiconductor announced that total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2007 were $407,9 million, an increase of approximately 1% over the third quarter. During the fourth quarter, the company reported net income of $61,1 million, or $0,20 per share on a fully diluted basis. During the third quarter of 2007, the company reported net income of $63,8 million, or $0,20 per share on a fully diluted basis. Total revenues for 2007 were $1,566 billion, an increase of 2% from the $1,532 billion in 2006. During 2007, the company reported net income of $242,2 million, compared to $272,1 million in 2006.
Revenues for Infineon excluding Qimonda in the first quarter of the 2008 fiscal year were 1,09 billion Euros, down 3% sequentially and up 14% year-over-year. EBIT was 65 million Euros, up from negative 25 million Euros in the prior quarter. EBIT in the first quarter included a net gain of 11 million Euros, reflecting a gain of 28 million Euros from the sale of part of the company's interest in its high-power bipolar business, which was partly offset by charges of 17 million Euros, reflecting a write-off of acquired in-process R&D of 14 million Euros relating to the mobile phone business acquired from LSI and restructuring expenses of 3 million Euros.
Companies
Qimonda and EBV Elektronik have signed a distribution agreement which became effective January 2008. Under the terms of the agreement EBV distributes DRAM modules and components from Qimonda in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), focusing on industrial and networking as well as consumer, mobile and automotive applications.
Wavecom announced that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Anyware Technologies, an industry leader in machine-to-machine (M2M) client-server software solutions located in France. Formed in 2000, Anyware Technologies has grown at high double digit rates over the last few years, ending 2007 with sales of nearly 5 million Euros, an increase of 74% from the previous year, and was profitable. The transaction was finalised for a cash payment to Anyware shareholders of 9,1 million Euros plus 1,5 million Euros placed in an escrow account for customary warranty provisions. An additional payment for earn-out of up to 2 million Euros upon reaching certain milestones is to be made in 2009.
Atmel has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Quantum Research Group, a leading independent developer of capacitive sensing IP and solutions for user interfaces. The acquisition provides Atmel with an immediate presence in touch sensing, one of the fastest growing markets for microcontrollers. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Atmel's net income per share in the fourth quarter of 2008 and thereafter. Under the terms of the agreement, Atmel will pay approximately $88 million in cash at closing. The acquisition has been approved by Atmel's Board of Directors and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval.
National Instruments (NI) announced that it has acquired all of the outstanding shares of microLEX Systems, a premier provider of virtual instrumentation-based video, audio and mixed-signal test solutions. NI expects this acquisition to expand its growth in the professional and consumer video and audio test market by leveraging the NI global sales and support organisation and microLEX's domain expertise in video and audio test. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
ARM and Renesas Technology have signed a subscription licence that gives Renesas full access to all ARM processor IP for future-generation products. The agreement also enables Renesas to obtain access to new ARM technology to meet demands for low-power system solutions for mobile applications, digital home electronics and office automation systems. The subscription licensing model is the first of its kind for ARM's Japanese customer base, and expands a long-term strategic technology partnership between ARM and Renesas.
Renesas, Sharp and Powerchip Semiconductor have announced an agreement to establish a joint venture specialising in drivers and controllers for small- and mid-size LCDs. Consolidating the business operations of Renesas and Sharp in this field, the new company will engage in the design, development, sales, and marketing of LCD drivers and controllers. Business operations related to these products will be transferred to the new company starting April 2008 for Renesas, and by the end of fiscal 2008 for Sharp. The new company will begin full operations on 1 April, 2008.
Cree has announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held LED Lighting Fixtures (LLF) in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $77 million, plus up to an additional $26,4 million over a three-year period. LLF is pioneering the development of LED lighting retrofit products and is recognised in the lighting industry as the first company to develop a viable, energy-efficient, 'no-compromise' LED down light for general illumination. This award-winning product is being used in commercial and residential applications and is based on the combination of Cree's lighting-class XLamp LEDs and LLF's patented colour-mixing technology that produces both very high efficiency and superior colour quality.
Freescale and SigmaTel have entered into a definitive agreement for Freescale to acquire SigmaTel. SigmaTel is a provider of analog intensive, mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs) for the digital multimedia market. Under the terms of the agreement, Freescale will pay $3 per outstanding share of SigmaTel stock representing approximately $110 million in cash. The agreement is subject to various customary closing conditions, including all necessary shareholder and regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal year 2008.
Industry
The Femto Forum, the independent industry association that supports femtocell deployment worldwide, has launched a programme to help harmonise the integration of femtocells into mobile core networks. Operator demand to launch femtocells quickly, has led to the development of many different methods for integrating potentially millions of femtocells into the network core. Although this is not holding up the commercial deployment of femtocells, this programme will help unite these different approaches in the longer term and set the stage for the development of future standards.
CSR and Motorola have announced that they intend to create an open industry forum to evaluate and foster enhanced global positioning system (EGPS) technologies. When used on a mobile device, EGPS technologies augment GPS to provide timely and accurate position information in demanding environments. The EGPS Forum is expected to advocate improvement to location technologies in mobile devices and is committed to meeting consumer and regulatory needs for precise and consistent levels of location information. The Forum will be open to a broad array of participants from the telecommunications industry including handset manufacturers, location technology companies, network infrastructure providers and mobile network carriers.
According to SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group's (SMG) year-end analysis of the silicon wafer industry, worldwide silicon wafer area shipments increased by 8% in 2007 when compared to 2006 area shipments. Revenues also grew by 21% in 2007 compared to 2006, as a result of 300 mm technology contributing to an overall better product mix. Shipments in 2007 totalled 8661 million square inches, up from the 7996 million square inches shipped during 2006. Revenues grew to $121 billion from $100 billion posted in 2006.
The Advanced Energy Consortium, comprised of, amongst others, ConocoPhilips, Halliburton Energy Services and BP America, has put up $21 million to fund research into nanosensor technologies that it hopes will help to extract more oil and gas out of the ground. Even with the most advanced recovery techniques currently available, only about 40% of the deposits in reservoirs can be recovered. The consortium hopes that by injecting sensors into these reservoirs, it will be possible to more accurately map them in three dimensions in order to increase the amount of fuel extracted and minimise the environmental impact of extraction operations.
Technology
An Israeli company called Sea-Eye Underwater is developing a system that it claims could transmit realtime video wirelessly in underwater environments. The acoustic modem, based on ultrasound technology, is expected to eventually be able to communicate over distances up to 500 metres, although initial claims are more conservative at 100 metres. The company says that it has already developed algorithms to deal with noise problems inherent to underwater environments, such as the Doppler effect and multipath reflection. The system is said to use carrier frequencies from 500 kHz to 1 MHz to transmit data at up to 200 Kbps.
Researchers at the Australian CSIRO, in conjunction with Furukawa Battery Company, have developed a lead-acid battery employing supercapacitor technology, suitably called the UltraBattery, capable of powering a hybrid-electric vehicle over more than 160 000 kilometres. A test performed on a Honda Insight showed that, after covering such a distance, 'the batteries were still in perfect condition.' This performance is comparable with that of the nickel-metal hydride systems found in most hybrid cars, but can be achieved at a fraction of the cost. The battery's negative electrode is half lead, half carbon, making it a supercapacitor-lead-acid hybrid.
British Merlin Robotics has built a 2 metre long robotic snake that uses not only muscle actuation but also linear sensors to function. The 'Robosnake' boasts 28 muscles, 27 degrees of freedom and a full posture control system. A 'world first', the muscle actuation mechanism is breakthrough technology - the 'muscles' include built-in air valves which enable far greater control and scope for movement. Another world first is the snake's absolute optical position sensors. These linear sensors are unique in the world of robotics as they are bus addressable and less susceptible to magnetic interference. The developers say that it will be possible to implement the mechanisms in commercial applications.
Engineering researchers from the University of Florida (UF) and Texas Instruments (TI) have crafted what they claim is the world's highest frequency circuit made with a common type of semiconductor transistor, a step that could slash the price of detectors useful in medicine, environmental monitoring and military applications. Ken O, a UF professor of electrical and computer engineering and the lead researcher on the project, said his team had demonstrated a 410 GHz circuit using CMOS technology - the technology used to make many of the components in personal computers, cellphones and handheld electronic devices. TI's advanced 45 nm CMOS process serves as the foundation for the new circuit.
At the recent International Solid State Circuit Conference, R&D institute Holst Centre presented a plastic 64-bit inductively-coupled passive RFID tag operating at 13,56 MHz. With a record 780 bps data readout of 64 bits over 10 cm, the device approaches item-level tagging requirements. This is said to represent a 5-fold higher bit rate than current state-of-the-art plastic RFID systems and the achievement could finally pave the way for low-cost, high-volume RFID tags to replace barcodes. The system consists of a low-cost inductive antenna, capacitor, plastic rectifier and plastic circuit, all on foil. The LC antenna resonates at 13,56 MHz and powers up the organic rectifier with an AC voltage at this frequency. From this voltage, the rectifier generates the DC supply voltage for the 64-bit organic transponder chip which drives the modulation transistor between the on and off state with a 64-bit code sequence.
Reaching a new threshold in the development of Flash memory, SanDisk has announced that it expects to start mass production of the world's first commercial three-bit-per-cell (x3) NAND Flash memory in March/April 2008. The 16 Gb x3 Flash employs SanDisk's standard 56 nm technology and provides over 20% more die per wafer compared to standard NAND multilevel cell (MLC) memory (2-bits-per-cell) on the same technology node. The new x3 architecture has been in development for the past two years and employs SanDisk's most advanced patented design innovations to achieve the same performance and high reliability found in SanDisk's 2-bits-per-cell chips.
Researchers at the US Department Of Energy's (DOE) Ames Laboratory have designed a new high-performance permanent magnet alloy that operates with good magnetic strength at 200°C. The work is helping advance electric drive-motor technology for future ultra-green vehicles and is part of a DOE programme to develop more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly highway transportation technologies. The Ames alloy design replaces pure neodymium in the neodymium-iron-boron 2-14-1 permanent-magnet crystal structure with a combination of neodymium, yttrium and dysprosium. The 2-14-1 crystal structure is maintained but with far less degradation of magnetic properties.
NEC has announced the successful development of a carbon nanotube (CNT) transistor using a coating process. The basic operation of the new transistor with advanced characteristics has been verified, confirming its application in the printed electronics field. The channel materials of conventional organic transistors generally demonstrate little mobility and are therefore considered unsuitable for electronic devices with high-speed operation. The basic operations for a transistor formed using this coating process were confirmed for the newly developed transistor, which adopts CNTs as its channel material to allow 100 times greater mobility than regular organic transistors.
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