South Africa
Tellumat Defence has won a R41 million, five-year extension of its deal to maintain the South African Air Force’s air defence radar, the AR-3D. Tellumat has serviced the system since 1981, when it was supplied by Plessey before its defence interests (among others) were spun out as Tellumat (in 1998). The deal primarily covers repairs at Tellumat’s resident depot at a Pretoria air base, call-out repairs to fixed and mobile Air Force sites, and re-design and fitment of system components.
For its 2008 financial year, Reunert increased revenue by 14% to R10,92 billion and on a like-for-like basis, operating profit increased by 9%. Normalised headline earnings improved by 11% to R1,12 billion. On a per share basis, normalised headline earnings increased by 10% to 630,1 cents. A final dividend of 241 cents per share was declared.
Webb Industries has appointed The Networking Warehouse (TNW) as specialist distributors of Telegärtner’s new DataVoice product range. TNW has branches in Durban, Cape Town, Midrand and Pretoria, as well as affiliates in neighbouring countries.
Altech has signed an agreement to sell its NamITech South Africa business to Gemalto, a world leader in digital security. Altech NamITech, with revenues of approximately R200 million, is a leading provider of secure cards and services in southern Africa. Its Linbro Park facility provides secure banking personalisation services to major banks in South Africa, employing approximately 350 people. Altech Card Solutions, Altech ISIS and Altech NamITech West Africa are not included in the transaction and remain part of Altech Group.
Arrow Altech Distribution has signed an agreement with Analog Devices to distribute the company’s product range throughout South Africa.
Overseas
Business
For its final 2008 fiscal quarter, Epcos achieved sales of 382 million Euros, up 1% year-on-year and 4% sequentially. EBIT of 23 million Euros compared to 11 million Euros in the same quarter of the previous year and 28 million Euros in the third quarter of 2008, and included a one-time charge of roughly 6 million Euros relating to the company’s merger with TDK’s components business. For the 2008 fiscal year, Epcos increased sales by 3% over the previous year to reach 1,478 billion Euros, with EBIT increasing 22% to 105 million Euros. Earnings per share were up to 0,99 Euros from 0,78 Euros in 2007.
Ramtron reported total revenue of $17,4 million for the third quarter of 2008, 30% higher than the $13,4 million reported for the same quarter of 2007. Product revenue increased 31% over last year’s figure, reaching $17,1 million. Third quarter net income was $1,4 million, or $0,05 per share, compared with net income of $1,1 million, or $0,05 per share, for the same quarter a year earlier.
Agilent Technologies reported revenues of $1,48 billion for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2008, 2% higher than a year ago. Fourth quarter GAAP net income was $231 million, or $0,64 per diluted share, compared to last year’s fourth quarter GAAP net income of $180 million, or $0,46 per share. Although revenues increased in several market sectors, sales of electronic measurement and general purpose test equipment were down compared to 2007.
For its fiscal fourth quarter of 2008, Analog Devices reported revenues of $661 million, up slightly from the immediately prior quarter and an increase of 6% from the same period in the previous year. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations were $0,49, an 11% increase from $0,44 in the immediately prior quarter, and a 63% increase from $0,30 in the same period of 2007. For the 2008 fiscal year, product revenue was $2,6 billion, an increase of 6% from $2,4 billion in fiscal year 2007. Diluted EPS from continuing operations was $1,77, a 17% increase from $1,51 in fiscal 2007.
Maxim reported net revenue of $501,2 million for its fiscal 2009 first quarter. This was fairly flat from the $501,3 million revenue recorded in the previous quarter. GAAP diluted earnings per share were $0,21. These results include pre-tax expenses of $37,6 million in stock-based compensation and $30,1 million in pre-tax expenses primarily related to the recently completed restatement and the ramp down of certain wafer fabrication facilities.
Fairchild Semiconductor has announced a company-wide restructuring programme that is expected to cut its worldwide workforce by approximately 12%, or 1100 people. The company expects to incur a total of $12 to $16 million in one-time cash charges related to restructuring actions during the current quarter (4Q08) and the first quarter of 2009. These measures are expected to reduce annual payroll expenses by approximately $33 million.
RF Micro Devices (RFMD) announced actions intended to streamline operations and reduce GaAs semiconductor manufacturing costs. The company expects the actions will begin to take effect in the March 2009 quarter and will positively impact cash flow in RFMD’s fiscal 2010, beginning 29 March 2009. Approximately 250 employees, or approximately 5% of the company’s global workforce, are expected to be affected by these actions between December 2008 and March 2009.
Companies
Epcos has signed an agreement with Chinese company Anhui Feida Industry Stock to launch a joint venture under the name Epcos (Anhui) Feida Electronics. The joint venture will develop and manufacture power capacitors for AC applications. Subject to approval by the relevant authorities, the new company should open for business early in 2009. Around 1300 employees will be transferred from Anhui Feida to the joint venture. Over the next three years, Epcos Feida aims to generate sales totalling 100 million Euros.
Two of RF Micro Devices’ recently introduced WCDMA/HSDPA cellular front ends have been selected by Samsung to support an upcoming high-volume 3G handset platform. The two new RFMD front ends – the RF3267 and RF6266 – are ultra-compact, highly integrated standard market 3G products designed to support the critical needs of multiband, multimode 3G handsets and smartphones.
ON Semiconductor has withdrawn from its joint proposal with Microchip to acquire Atmel. Keith Jackson, president and CEO of ON said, “While we believe that Atmel’s non-volatile memory and RF and automotive businesses would be an attractive strategic acquisition, we have decided to withdraw from the proposal due to the unforeseen deterioration in the semiconductor market since we announced our proposal, as well as the unprecedented weakness in the financial markets.” Upon hearing of ON’s withdrawal, Microchip also withdrew its $5 per share offer for Atmel, but later put forth a proposal for a new slate of directors to be considered at Atmel’s 2009 annual meeting.
Intel and Micron announced mass production of their jointly developed 34 nm, 32 gigabit multilevel cell NAND Flash memory device. The companies’ joint venture, IM Flash Technologies, is ahead of schedule, expecting its Lehi facility to have transitioned more than 50% of its capacity to 34 nm by year’s end. The companies also plan to begin sampling lower density multilevel cell and single-level cell products using the 34 nm process technology in early 2009.
Maxim has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Mobilygen, a privately held, fabless semiconductor company with leading technology in H.264 video compression. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.
Spirit DSP, a leading provider of voice and video software engines, announced that ARM has selected Spirit Voice and Audio software to evaluate the multimedia performance of its next-generation processors. Fully optimised for ARM processor-based devices, Spirit software increases VoIP and multimedia quality and power efficiency on embedded platforms such as mobile phones, MIDs, PMPs and STBs.
Sierra Wireless and Wavecom have reached a memorandum of understanding under which Sierra will make a cash offer of 8,50 Euros per ordinary share of Wavecom, and 31,93 Euros per OCEANE convertible bond, amounting to an aggregate purchase price of approximately 218 million Euros. The offer represents a premium of 21% over the offer for Wavecom shares announced by Gemalto on 6 October 2008.
Nokia has completed its offer to acquire Symbian. All conditions to Nokia’s offer to acquire Symbian have been satisfied and it has received valid acceptance of greater than 99,9% of the total Symbian shares that Nokia did not already own. Symbian is the software company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for mobile devices.
PLX Technology, a global supplier of PCI Express switch and bridge silicon, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire all of the outstanding shares of capital stock of Oxford Semiconductor, a privately held fabless provider of silicon and software for the consumer and small office/home office storage markets. Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, PLX will acquire all of the outstanding shares of capital stock of Oxford in exchange for 5 600 000 shares of common stock of PLX, and a promissory note in the aggregate principal amount of $14 200 000 that will be satisfied by either the issuance of an additional 3 400 000 shares of common stock of PLX upon approval of the PLX stockholders, or the repayment of the principal amount of the note by 30 June 2009, if such stockholder approval is not obtained.
Industry
AAEON has become the second computer-on-module manufacturer to support the 84 x 55 mm nanoETXexpress form factor. Developed by Kontron, nanoETXexpress is targeted at mobile mini-computer devices based on x86 processors, and conforms 100% to the COM Express specification in terms of pin locations and assignments.
LSI has joined the Power Forward Initiative (PFI) in order to collaborate with other industry leaders to advance the state-of-the-art in low-power design. PFI membership has grown to more than 35 companies from around the world who represent a broad spectrum of semiconductor, IP, EDA, ASIC, design services and manufacturing providers.
Technology
Highly-integrated power-line transceivers from STMicroelectronics will be deployed in the largest-ever automatic meter reading (AMR) project in China. Power-line communication modules based on ST’s chips have been selected, in combination with other conventional communication technologies such as RS485, for a multi-utility metering system that will enable China National Petroleum Corporation, the country’s largest integrated oil and gas company, to remotely collect and manage consumption of water, gas, heat and electricity in more than one million households across China.
Cree announced it has achieved industry-best reported R&D results of 161 lumens per watt for a white power LED. Cree’s tests confirmed that the 1 x 1 mm LED produced 173 lumens of light output and achieved 161 lumens per watt efficacy at a colour temperature of 4689 K. The tests were conducted under standard LED test conditions at a drive current of 350 mA, at room temperature.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered and demonstrated a new method for overcoming two major hurdles facing solar energy. By developing a new antireflective coating that boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire solar spectrum from nearly any angle, the research team has moved academia and industry closer to realising high-efficiency, cost-effective solar power. An untreated silicon solar cell only absorbs 67,4% of sunlight shone upon it, meaning that nearly one third of that sunlight is reflected away and thus unharvestable. After a silicon surface was treated with physics professor Shawn-Yu Lin’s new nanoengineered reflective coating, however, the material absorbed 96,21% of sunlight shone upon it, meaning that only 3,79% of the sunlight was reflected and unharvested.
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