Overseas
Business
Announcing financial results for its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter ended 28 March 2009, RF Micro Devices reported that quarterly revenue decreased approximately 14,7% sequentially to $172,3 million. GAAP gross margin decreased sequentially from 19,0% to 17,3%, and non-GAAP gross margin decreased from 22,6% to 19,8% during the same period, primarily as a result of lower factory utilisation rates. Operating loss was approximately $56,5 million on a GAAP basis and approximately $21,4 million on a non-GAAP basis, reflecting reduced revenue and gross profit. Net loss was approximately $49,4 million on a GAAP basis and approximately $25,4 million on a non-GAAP basis.
Kontron continued its profitable growth path in the first quarter of the 2009 financial year, and reported a slight increase in revenue to 106,6 million Euros compared with the 105,9 million Euros reported in the prior year period. The company’s financial wellbeing is further reflected in the rise in its order backlog to 306,3 million Euros, compared with 291,4 million Euros at the start of the year.
Yageo announced its first quarter net sales of NT$ (New Taiwan dollar) 3,726 billion with a 12% decrease quarter-on-quarter and down 35% year-on-year, impacted by the global economic slump. Gross margin dropped to 6,6%, damaged by high cost of production due to low capacity utilisation rate. Operating loss and net loss after tax in the quarter were NT$ 330 million and NT$ 468 million respectively, or NT$ 0,21 loss per share.
Weak demand burdened Epcos’ sales and earnings in the company’s second 2009 fiscal quarter. Sales were 263 million Euros, down 27% compared to the same quarter last year, and down 7% compared to the immediately prior quarter. EBIT decreased sequentially from minus 19 million Euros to minus 42 million Euros, compared with plus 26 million Euros in the second quarter of 2008. In order to limit expenses, the company in this quarter instituted short-time working policies and reduced headcount by 2050 worldwide (of some 22 000 total employees).
Monolithic Power Systems, a fabless manufacturer of high-performance analog and mixed-signal semiconductors, announced financial results for the quarter ended 31 March 2009. Net revenues were $29,3 million, down 17,2% from $35,4 million in the first quarter of 2008 and down 15,5% sequentially. GAAP net loss was $0,7 million, with GAAP loss per share of $0,02 per diluted share, while non-GAAP net income was $2,3 million, or $0,06 per diluted share, excluding stock-based compensation and related tax effects.
Microchip recently reported results for the three months and fiscal year ended 31 March 2009. Net sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009 were $173,3 million, down 9,8% sequentially from net sales of $192,2 million in the immediately preceding quarter, and down 33,5% from net sales of $260,4 million in the prior year’s fourth quarter. GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009 was $22,8 million, or 12 cents per diluted share, down 68,8% from GAAP net income of $73,2 million, or 40 cents per diluted share, in the immediately preceding quarter, and down 70,2% from GAAP net income of $76,7 million, or 40 cents per diluted share, in the prior year’s fourth quarter. Net sales for the fiscal year were $903,3 million, a decrease of 12,8% from net sales of $1035,7 million in the prior fiscal year. On a GAAP basis, net income for the fiscal year was $248,8 million, or $1,33 per diluted share, a decrease of 16,4% from net income of $297,7 million, or $1,40 per diluted share in the prior fiscal year.
International Rectifier recorded revenue for its fiscal 2009 third quarter of $146,6 million. Excluding intellectual property and transition services segment revenue, fiscal third quarter 2009 revenue from ongoing customer segments was $132,6 million, down 24,6% compared with $175,8 million in the prior quarter, and down 41,7% compared with $227,5 million reported in the fiscal third quarter of 2008. Net loss was $81,7 million, or $1,13 per share, compared with a net loss of $186,1 million or $2,56 per share in the prior quarter, and net loss of $21,6 million or $0,30 per share in the fiscal third quarter of 2008.
Revenue for Ramtron’s first fiscal quarter of 2009 was $10,5 million, compared with $14,3 million reported for the same quarter of 2008. Net loss was $6,4 million, or $0,24 per share, compared with net income of $565 000, or $0,02 per share, for the same quarter a year earlier. First-quarter 2009 results include a restructuring expense of $459 000 and a non-cash impairment charge of $5,4 million related to restructuring and cost saving measures announced in March of this year.
STMicroelectronics reported financial results for the 2009 first quarter ended 28 March 2009. Net revenues were down sequentially from $2276 million in the fourth quarter of 2008 to $1660 million; this compares to $2478 million in the first quarter of 2008. Net loss per share was $0,62, compared to a loss of $0,42 in the immediately prior quarter, and a loss of $0,09 in the similar period a year ago.
ON Semiconductor announced that total revenues in the first quarter of 2009 were $379,1 million, a decrease of approximately 22% from the fourth quarter of 2008. During the first quarter of 2009, the company reported a GAAP net loss of $33,9 million, or $0,08 per fully diluted share. During the fourth quarter of 2008, the company reported a GAAP net loss of $524,7 million, or $1,28 per fully diluted share. During the fourth quarter the company recorded a charge of approximately $544,5 million arising from the company’s annual goodwill impairment testing.
Companies
NEC Electronics, Renesas Technology, NEC Corporation, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric have agreed to enter into negotiations to integrate business operations at NEC Electronics and Renesas. NEC Electronics was established in 2002, separating from NEC, and Renesas was established in 2003, integrating semiconductor units at Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric. Both as leading semiconductor companies, NEC Electronics and Renesas provide a wide variety of semiconductor solutions, primarily specialising in microcontrollers. By integrating two of the world’s largest MCU suppliers, the new company expects to provide one of the most competitive global MCU product lineups. Specific details of the merger are to be hammered out later this year.
Mentor Graphics and LogicVision have signed a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which Mentor Graphics will acquire LogicVision. Under the terms of the agreement, which was approved by the boards of directors of both companies, LogicVision stockholders will receive 0,2006 of a share of Mentor Graphics common stock for each share of LogicVision, for aggregate consideration of approximately $13 million dollars.
Industry
The global semiconductor manufacturing industry is expected to take one small step back from the precipice in the second quarter of 2009, as utilisation rises for the first time in a year, according to iSuppli. Utilisation of worldwide semiconductor capacity is expected to rise to 60% in the quarter, up from 49% in the first quarter. This will mark the first quarterly sequential increase in total utilisation since the quarter of 2008. Rising utilisation will set the stage for more solid chip pricing in the future, which could help the industry return to revenue growth in the coming quarters.
Technology
A team from Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley has created a 'carpet cloak' from nanostructured silicon that conceals the presence of objects placed under it from optical detection. While the carpet itself can still be seen, the bulge of the object underneath it disappears from view. Shining a beam of light on the bulge shows a reflection identical to that of a beam reflected from a flat surface, meaning the object itself has essentially been rendered invisible. The new cloak created by Xiang Zhang and his team is made exclusively from dielectric materials, which are often transparent at optical frequencies. The cloak was demonstrated in a rectangular slab of silicon (250 nanometres thick) that serves as an optical waveguide in which light is confined in the vertical dimension but free to propagate in the other two dimensions. A carefully designed pattern of holes – each 110 nanometres in diameter – perforates the silicon, transforming the slab into a metamaterial that forces light to bend like water flowing around a rock. In the experiments reported in Nature Materials, the cloak was used to cover an area that measured about 3,8 microns by 400 nanometres. It demonstrated invisibility at variable angles of light incident.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a stretchable display that can be spread over a curved surface without affecting performance, and can be folded in half or crumpled up without incurring any damage. Flexible electronics that can be rolled up like paper are nothing new, but the rubber-like nature of the new development makes it more suitable to cover complex three-dimensional objects. What makes the material most promising is that it can be printed, and combined with printable organic light emitting diodes and organic transistors, this could be an important characteristic to make the technology commercially viable.
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