Southern Africa
Motorola won the Mobile Data Association (MDA) Green Award for its wind and solar powered mobile base station trial in Namibia, conducted with the GSM Association (GSMA) and MTC Namibia. The MDA awards recognise forward-thinking companies that have made a significant contribution to the uptake of mobile data. Motorola won the award for successfully addressing environmental issues and bringing these issues into the corporate mainstream. During the trial in Namibia, a base station on the site was powered using renewable energy sources, including wind and solar power.
Vodacom has agreed to acquire the carrier services and business network solutions subsidiaries of Gateway Telecommunications for an enterprise value of approximately $675 million plus a make-whole payment of approximately $25 million in relation to Gateway’s high-yield bond. Gateway is Africa’s largest independent provider of interconnection services via satellite and terrestrial network infrastructure for both African and international telecommunications companies.
Altech announced that the Pretoria High Court has ruled in favour of Altech Autopage Cellular to the entitlement of having its existing Value Added Network Services (VANS) licence converted into an individual electronic communications network service (I-ECNS) licence, enabling the group’s telecommunications subsidiary to develop and operate its own telecommunications network. The Honourable Acting Judge Davis instituted that South African bylaw obliges ICASA to issue network provider licences to VANS licensees such as Altech.
Buildworks has concluded an agreement, subject to the conditions precedent, to acquire Conco, one of South Africa’s foremost suppliers of power related services to the electricity supply industry. Conco was involved in South Africa’s first wind generation plant at Darling in the Western Cape. Buildworks will acquire the entire issued ordinary share capital and shareholders claims of Conco for a purchase consideration of between R420 million to R670 million which is subject to a profit warranty and earn-out by the vendors to 28 February 2010.
Overseas
Business
Cree announced revenue of $135,9 million for its fiscal fourth quarter ended 29 June. This represents a 9% increase compared to the fiscal third quarter of 2008 and a 22% increase compared to revenue of $111,2 million reported for the fourth fiscal quarter last year. GAAP net income for the fourth quarter was $8,4 million, or $0,09 per diluted share, compared to net income of $6,4 million or $0,08 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007. For fiscal year 2008, revenue was $493,3 million, which represents a 25% increase compared to revenue of $394,1 million for fiscal 2007.
For its second quarter of fiscal year 2009, Wind River reported revenues of $91,9 million, compared with $84,6 million reported in the second quarter of fiscal 2008, an increase of 9%. GAAP net income was $8,8 million, compared to a net income of $4,3 million in the second quarter a year ago, an increase of 104%. Net income per diluted share for the quarter was $0,11, compared to a net income per diluted share of $0,05 in the second quarter a year ago, an increase of 120%.
Agilent reported orders of $1,39 billion for the third fiscal quarter ended 31 July 2008, 6% above one year ago. Revenues during the quarter were $1,44 billion, 5% above last year. Third quarter GAAP net income was $169 million, or $0,45 per diluted share. Last year’s third quarter GAAP net income was $185 million, or $0,45 per share. Segment trends were very similar to the first half, with Bio-analytical revenues up 13%, or 10% excluding acquisitions, with robust growth in both life sciences and chemical analysis markets. Electronic measurement revenues increased less than 1%, with steady growth in communications test markets largely offset by weakness in semiconductor-related markets.
Analog Devices’ financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2008, which ended 2 August, included revenue of $659 million, an increase of 1,5% from the immediately prior quarter and 7% from the same period one year ago. Gross margin for the third quarter of fiscal 2008 was $402 million, or 61,0% of revenue, compared to $396 million, or 61,0% of revenue, in the immediately prior quarter, and $373 million, or 60,5% of revenue, for the same period one year ago. Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations for the most recent quarter were $0,44, consistent with $0,44 in the immediately prior quarter, and a 16% increase from $0,38 in the same period a year ago.
ON Semiconductor announced that total revenues in the second quarter of 2008 were a record $562,7 million, an increase of approximately 33% from the first quarter of 2008. During the second quarter of 2008, the company reported GAAP net income of $44,6 million, or $0,11 per share on a fully diluted basis. Second quarter 2008 GAAP net income included a net charge of $50,5 million, or $0,12 per share on a fully diluted basis, from special items. During the first quarter of 2008, the company reported GAAP net income of $208 million, or $007 per share on a fully diluted basis.
Maxim reported net revenue of $501,3 million for its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter. This is a 2,8% increase from the $487,4 million revenue recorded in the previous quarter and is a 1,6% increase over the normalised revenue of the 14 week quarter from a year ago. For the fiscal year ending 28 June, the company achieved record net revenue of $2,051 billion, which is a 4,2% increase over the normalised revenue from the previous 53 week fiscal year.
Ixys reported record net revenues of $79,3 million for its first fiscal quarter of 2008, an increase of 4,5%, as compared with net revenues of $75,9 million for the same period in the prior fiscal year. Gross profit was $24,8 million, or 31,2% of net revenues, as compared to gross profit of $22,4 million, or 29,5% of net revenues, for the same quarter in the prior fiscal year. Net income for the latest quarter was $5,5 million, or $0,17 per diluted share, as compared to a net income of $7,0 million, or $0,21 per diluted share for the same quarter in the prior fiscal year.
Companies
Vishay has made a non-binding proposal to International Rectifier’s (IR) board of directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of IR common stock for $21,22 per share in cash, or total payment of approximately $1,6 billion. This offer represents an approximate 13% premium over the closing price of $18,82 on 14 August, and a 20% premium over its 30 day moving average of $17,69. The proposal is subject to diligence and other customary conditions.
STMicroelectronics and Ericsson announced an agreement to merge Ericsson Mobile Platforms and recently-launched ST-NXP Wireless into a joint venture. The 50/50 joint venture will have a very strong product offering in semiconductors and platforms for mobile applications and will be an important supplier to Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and Sharp. The fabless joint venture will employ almost 8000 people with pro-forma 2007 sales of $3,6 billion. ST is expected to exercise its option to buy NXP’s 20% of ST-NXP Wireless before the closing of this transaction.
Broadcom and AMD have announced that the companies have entered into a definitive agreement for Broadcom to acquire AMD’s digital TV (DTV) business for approximately $192,8 million in cash. The acquisition is expected to enable Broadcom to immediately scale its DTV business, and, in conjunction with its existing products, to offer a complete product line that covers all segments of the DTV market ranging from low-end value and mid-range quality to high-end interactive platforms and panel processors. The boards of directors of each company has approved the transaction and shareholder/stockholder approval of the transaction is not required by either company.
Wind River has signed an agreement to acquire MIZI Research, a privately-held company based in Seoul, Korea that focuses on the development of mobile application platforms based on embedded Linux. Founded in 1999, MIZI currently has 65 employees and is one of the earliest Linux pioneers in the mobile market. With this acquisition, Wind River expects to gain access to world-class mobile expertise that can be leveraged across its various mobile alliances as well as accelerate its mobile services presence in Asia Pacific. Under the terms of the agreement, Wind River will pay up to $16 million in cash to acquire substantially all of the outstanding shares of MIZI.
Industry
Kontron has announced that AMD will support the Universal Graphics Module (UGM) standard. As a leading vendor of the well known ATI computer graphics processing technologies, AMD’s support for the UGM standard is expected to accelerate its widespread adoption. The UGM standard provides off-the-shelf embedded graphics on an industry-standard modular platform with multiple display configurations to guarantee customers short time-to-market.
Wireless USB, based on the WiMedia Alliance’s ultrawideband (UWB) common radio platform, is garnering increased attention from mobile device manufacturers. It is capable of transmitting data up to 480 Mbps at distances up to 3 metres and 110 Mbps at up to 10 metres. The technology is gradually being implemented in game controllers, digital cameras, portable media players (PMPs) and laptops. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group has also announced that the next version of Bluetooth would be based on Wimedia’s UWB common radio platform. Frost & Sullivan suggests that UWB is the most attractive emerging technology that can satisfy the power efficiency and data rate demands of present day mobile device users.
Technology
NXP Semiconductors has developed what it claims is the first multistandard radio IC dedicated to digital in car-reception together with iBiquity, the developer of digital HD radio technology. Dubbed SAF3560, the single-chip software solution supports HD radio technology, DAB, DAB+, DRM and T-DMB Radio reception standards.
IBM and its joint development partners – AMD, Freescale, STMicroelectronics, Toshiba and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) – recently announced the first working SRAM for the 22 nanometre technology node, the world’s first reported working cell built at its 300 mm research facility in New York. SRAM chips are precursors to more complex devices such as microprocessors. The SRAM cell utilises a conventional six-transistor design and has an area of 0,1 μm², breaking the previous SRAM scaling barriers.
In a promising step towards making quantum computing a reality, an international team of researchers has successfully demonstrated that it is possible to control the quantum state of a single electron in a silicon transistor. Quantum computers are expected to be able to perform certain types of calculations much faster than classical computers, but they will need to scale from the current achievements of 12 or 16 quantum circuits to millions for them to become practical. Employing nanotechnology, the scientists managed to detect three atomic states, one of which corresponds to the electron being in two places at the same time, which is necessary for quantum computing. What makes this discovery significant is that it makes it possible to control the state of a quantum system with conventional electronics, by simply altering the voltage applied to a transistor.
Microsoft researchers have developed a new pixel technology which is said to provide benefits over LCD technology in terms of switching speed, brightness, power efficiency and cost. The telescopic pixel uses a pair of mirrors to block or transmit light, as opposed to LCDs which light red, green and blue pixels in varying amounts to create images. The polarising films, liquid crystal layer and colour filters in LCD block up to 95% of light projected onto them, while the new telescopic pixels let 36% of the light through. Since they switch completely on and off in 1,5 milliseconds – as opposed to 25 to 40 milliseconds for LCDs – they can mitigate the blurriness inherent to fast-moving images on LCDs.
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