South Africa
Comtest is celebrating Fluke’s 60th birthday by holding a competition to find the oldest functioning Fluke digital multimeter in South Africa. The competition is being held to coincide with a similar, international competition being held by Fluke. The winner of each competition will win a Fluke 289 DMM. Local users are welcome to enter both competitions.
The Altron group, through its principal subsidiaries, Altech, Bytes and Powertech, has donated food and supplies as well as cash worth R200 000 to the Star’s Operation Reach Out. This project is aimed at assisting people that were displaced by the xenophobic violence in South Africa.
Tellumat Defence has been awarded a five-year R24 million contract by Armscor to support and maintain the airfield radar approach systems (AFRAS) at various South African Air Force (SAAF) bases around the country. The deal follows on a similar contract to maintain and support SAAF’s Umlindi long-range air defence radar systems. Tellumat’s role will entail handling mainly depot-based repairs. It has set up a depot specifically for this purpose, which it will man permanently based at the Air Force’s Mobile Deployment Wing in Pretoria.
Powertech Transformers has signed a contract with Eskom for the supply of transformers across a range of sizes up to 400 kV. The indicative value of the contract stands at R1,366 billion and significantly enhances the alliance partnership with Eskom. The transformers ordered by Eskom will be designed and manufactured in their totality at Powertech’s manufacturing facility in Pretoria West.
Overseas
Business
There has been recent progress in a class action lawsuit against IBM claiming that the company misled investors regarding its expected financial results and the anticipated size of its stock-option expense in 2005. The US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) enforced an action against IBM last year for what it said were ‘materially misleading statements’ in an April 2005 presentation made by IBM to investors. In the most recent development, IBM has made a $20 million offer to settle the class action lawsuit, despite continuing to dispute the allegations.
Companies
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged a former partner at Ernst & Young, his friend Donna Murdoch, and her father in an insider trading scheme that resulted in nearly $600 000 in illicit profits. The SEC’s insider trading case alleges that James E. Gansman passed insider information regarding at least seven different acquisition targets of clients who sought valuation services from his firm. According to the SEC’s complaint, Murdoch used the non-public information to trade in the securities of the target companies; to tip her father, who also traded; and to make recommendations to two others, who traded as well. The transactions in question include Freescale’s $17,6 billion acquisition by private equity firms and AMD’s acquisition of ATI, both of which occurred in 2006.
Express Logic, provider of royalty-free realtime operating systems (RTOS), announced that it has joined the Eclipse Foundation, an open-source community whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle. The foundation is a not-for-profit, member-supported corporation that hosts the Eclipse projects and helps cultivate both an open-source community and an ecosystem of complementary products and services.
ARM has announced a major technology licensing agreement with Toshiba, encompassing the ARM Cortex-A9 processor, the Cortex-R4F processor, NEON SIMD technology, PrimeCell peripherals and CoreSight on-chip trace and debugging technology. This comprehensive adoption of ARM technology by Toshiba, and its Cortex-M3 processor licence last year, will enable the company to provide an ARM powered system-on-chip portfolio across the full performance spectrum. The Cortex-A9 MPCore multicore processor is aimed at smartphones, mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and consumer electronics whereas the Cortex-R4F processor has been designed for embedded use in hard-disk drives, automotive safety systems, mobile baseband, and printer applications.
Mydata has announced the acquisition of its German distributor Royonic, with which it has a long standing and successful relationship in the German SMT market. This acquisition represents a starting point to further develop and expand Mydata’s business in Germany. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Analog Devices and its CEO Jerald Fishman for reporting false compensation and related financial information to investors by backdating stock option grants to officers, directors and employees. Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, Analog and Fishman agreed to settle charges against them by consenting to the entry of an administrative cease-and-desist order. In a related civil action, the company and Fishman consented to pay $3 million and $1 million civil penalties, respectively.
Bosch has signed agreements with Ventizz Capital Partners for the acquisition of 50,45% of the shares in ersol Solar Energy, a German producer of silicon solar cells. The purchase price for these shares is 546,4 million Euros and corresponds to a share price of 101 Euros per share.
Following these agreements, Bosch intends to submit a public takeover offer to all other ersol shareholders offering the same purchase price in cash per share.
Industry
A group of key companies across North America and Europe have united to form the EnOcean Alliance. The Alliance’s mission is to enable intelligent green buildings based on EnOcean energy harvesting wireless technology. The Alliance has selected Lightfair 2008 as the platform for its official launch. Founding promoters of the Alliance include Masco, Leviton, EnOcean, Distech Controls, MK Electric (a Honeywell subsidiary), Omnio and Thermokon. Additional member companies, such as Texas Instruments and Sylvania Osram, are joining the Alliance at the ‘participant’ level.
Worldwide sales of semiconductors of $21,2 billion in April were 5,9% higher than the $20,1 billion reported for April 2007, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). April sales were essentially flat sequentially with the $21,2 billion reported for March 2008. Year-to-date sales of $82,9 billion are 4,3% higher than the first four months of 2007 when sales were $79,5 billion. SIA noted that the April results are in line with historical industry patterns.
The market for digital power management ICs will receive a huge boost as various industries focus on improving energy efficiency in their power electronics. Suppliers are reacting to this demand by releasing new products that guarantee energy savings through enhanced power efficiency, greater design flexibility and larger available board space for design through component integration. New analysis from global growth consulting company Frost & Sullivan finds that the worldwide market for these components earned revenues of $161,7 million in 2007 and estimates this to reach $266,5 million in 2011. The adaptive capability of digital power management ICs will enhance linearity between load and utilisation and result in significant cost savings. These ICs are also benefiting from the rising need to manage multiple voltage rails and high power in many application segments such as telecommunications, data communications and computer networks.
Technology
VIA Technologies has announced the new VIA Nano processor family based on the VIA Isaiah Architecture. Building on the energy efficiency of the VIA C7 processor family, the VIA Nano processor family offers as much as four times the performance within the same power range, while pin compatibility with VIA C7 processors will ensure a smooth transition for OEMs and motherboard vendors, and provide them with an easy upgrade path for current system or board designs.
At the Tetra World Congress in Hong Kong, Motorola announced the introduction of the smallest body-worn TETRA Covert Radio, the TCR1000, that provides fully featured TETRA radio functions to users in covert operations. The new radio in thin form factor can easily be concealed in light clothing and ensures secure communications with encryption features that improve operational effectiveness in the field. It weighs less than 180 grams and its small, light-weight design helps officers to disguise their equipment during covert operations, allowing them to blend into the crowd.
Intel and Micron have introduced the industry’s first sub-40 nanometer NAND memory device, unveiling a 34 nm 32 gigabit (Gb) multilevel cell chip. This process technology was jointly developed by Intel and Micron and manufactured by the companies’ NAND Flash joint venture, IM Flash Technologies. It is the smallest NAND process geometry on the market. The 32 Gb NAND chip is the only monolithic device at this density that fits into a standard 48-lead thin small-outline package (TSOP), providing a cost-effective path to higher densities in existing applications. Shipments of customer samples begin in June and mass production is expected during the second half of 2008.
Infineon announced the availability of its new generation 3G platform family. This new family addresses all major 3G market segments and includes a high performance HSPA modem solution, a feature phone solution enriched with high multimedia capabilities and a cost-efficient 3G solution. The solutions are based on new members of the X-GOLD 61x-series and Infineon’s 3G radio frequency (RF) transceiver device, the SMARTi UE. The X-GOLD 61x-series are monolithically integrated, low power 65 nm baseband devices that include all digital, analog and power management functions.
Even with the significant potential that organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology has, there are issues related to the lifetime of different colours and encapsulation techniques. According to Frost & Sullivan, researchers from the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRI) in Singapore have developed a novel technique under which they attempt to overcome the pore effect which plagues common techniques by closing the pinholes and cracks in the protective oxide films using nanoparticles that react with water and thus, prevent water from affecting the organic core. This development could lead to an increase in the lifetime of organic displays, solar cells, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and batteries, among other applications.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) jointly announced their partnership to provide the world’s first dual mode UWB MAC IC using SMIC’s 0,13 μm mix-mode CMOS technology. This UWB ASIC is a WiMedia Compliant IC supporting both Wireless Link Protocol and Information Group Resource Sharing standard networking applications. Included in this ASIC design are advanced multihop connectivity and video/audio quality of service features. This ASIC targets wireless personal area networking applications, enabling electronic manufacturers to create innovative, high speed, intelligent and seamlessly connected wireless multimedia consumer products.
STMicroelectronics and Mobileye, a leading provider of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to the automotive industry, have announced that the two companies have successfully sampled the second generation of their system-on-chip EyeQ2 for the vision-based driver assistance segment of the automotive market. EyeQ2 introduces functionality such as pedestrian detection as well as lane-departure warning, adaptive headlight control, traffic-sign recognition, collision avoidance and forward collision warning on one vision processor. The EyeQ2 takes input from two high-resolution image sensors and has video-output capabilities that include graphic overlay.
A startup company called Ozmo has developed a Wi-Fi-based system which it claims offers improvements over Bluetooth in terms of battery life, cost and bandwidth. The device measures 6 x 6mm and features a simplified receiver which does not require support for scanning or roaming to link to an access point. It is capable of 9 Mbps links over both 2,4 GHz and 5 GHz bands with a range of 10 metres. The company has reportedly been working with Intel, which is interested in the potential of Wi-Fi PANs for its mainstream Centrino notebooks.
Broadcom has announced its next generation Bluetooth Version 2.1+ EDR single-chip solution that provides significant performance upgrades and enhanced features, including lower power consumption, smaller chip size and improved radio performance. Developed in an advanced 65 nanometer CMOS process, the new system-on-chip (SoC) solution targets mobile handset applications and includes the unique Broadcom SmartAudio sound and voice enhancement technology that was previously available only in wireless headset products. Cellular handset makers can now offer improvements in battery life and audio quality, providing a clearer, more satisfying wireless experience to consumers.
A company called SiliconBlue has launched a new low-power FPGA which it claims eliminates external configuration memory and results in significant power savings. The design does not employ any breakthroughs in FPGA architecture or process technology – in fact it employs a four-input lookup table and a register, with a bypass path, based on an expired 1986 Xilinx patent. It still, however, claims significant power savings in that a 3500-logic-cell device draws only 9 mA from a 1,2 V supply while operating at 32 MHz.
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