South Africa
Altech has announced the purchase of 50% plus 1 share in NuPayment Solutions, a payments processing company focused on the automation of electronic debit orders, providing authenticated and non-authenticated managed transactions within the card-based and electronic funds transfer environments. Altech signed a share purchase agreement to acquire the majority shareholding in NuPay, together with ancillary agreements from ABSA for a purchase consideration of R53,5 million.
Overseas
Business
ARM Holdings recorded revenues for the first quarter of 2009, ended 31 March, of £79,9 million, 18% better than the £67,9 million reported in the same quarter last year. Earnings per share were 1,38 pence, also 18% up compared to the same period a year ago. The company’s processor licence base grew to over 600 thanks to the addition of 17 new licences, four of which were for the Cortex-M microcontroller architecture.
Reporting results for its 2009 fiscal year, Elpida Memory announced net sales of 331 billion Yen, an 18,4% decrease from last year’s total of 405,5 billion Yen. Net loss for the year was 178,9 billion Yen, compared to a net loss of 23,5 billion Yen in 2008.
Actel announced net revenues of $48,5 million for the first quarter of 2009, down 12% from the first quarter of 2008 and down 8% from the fourth quarter of 2008. Including stock-based compensation, expenses associated with the restructuring, and other non-recurring adjustments in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), the company recorded a net loss of $3,0 million, or $0,11 per basic share, for the first quarter of 2009 compared with a net income of $0,2 million, or $0,01 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2008 and a net loss of $12,5 million, or $0,48 per basic share, for the fourth quarter of 2008.
The European Commission has ruled against Intel in a case involving the company’s violation of antitrust rules and abuse of its dominant x86 CPU market position. The Commission has adjudged that Intel was guilty of providing hidden rebates to computer manufacturers in return for the majority of their business, and of making direct payments to a computer retailer to stock only computers with Intel CPUs. Furthermore, the Commission found that Intel has made direct payments to computer manufacturers in return for them delaying the launch of specific products loaded with competitors’ processors. The fine could be as steep as 1,06 billion Euros.
Agilent Technologies reported revenues of $1,09 billion for the second fiscal quarter ended 30 April 2009, 25% below one year ago. Second quarter GAAP net loss was $101 million, or $0,29 per diluted share. Last year’s second quarter GAAP net income was $173 million, or $0,47 per share. During the second quarter, Agilent had restructuring and asset impairment charges of $98 million and $12 million of non-cash amortisation. It also recognised a quarter-to-date tax adjustment of $31 million and had $4 million of other net charges. Excluding these items, Agilent reported second quarter adjusted net income of $44 million, or $0,13 per share. On a comparable basis, the company earned $172 million, or $0,46 per share, one year ago.
Companies
Micron has signed an agreement to sell a majority interest in its imaging solutions business, Aptina Imaging, to private equity firms Riverwood Capital and TPG Capital. As part of the agreement, Micron will retain a 35% minority stake in the independent, privately held company. Riverwood and TPG will also contribute significant primary capital to Aptina’s balance sheet, and Micron will continue to manufacture products and provide services for Aptina at its worldwide facilities. After the transaction is completed, Micron expects to record a loss approximating $100 million in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year in connection with the sale, and Aptina’s separate financials will no longer be consolidated in Micron’s financial statements.
Intel has entered into an agreement to acquire Wind River Systems, under which Intel will acquire all outstanding Wind River common stock for $11,50 per share in cash, or approximately $884 million in the aggregate. Wind River is a leading software vendor in embedded devices, and will become part of Intel’s strategy to grow its processor and software presence outside the traditional PC and server market segments into embedded systems and mobile handheld devices. Wind River will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel and continue with its current business model of supplying leading-edge products and services to its customers worldwide.
Industry
NextGen Research has forecast that the overall solid-state lighting (SSL) market will achieve worldwide revenues topping $33 billion by 2013. The illumination segment of the LED market will light the way with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 22% in the 2009–2013 timeframe. The display portion of the market will also shine brightly, achieving a five-year CAGR of over 14% as cities worldwide shift their streetlights to these more energy-efficient and ecologically friendly solutions. A number of trends have intersected to make this one of the most dynamic periods in the history of LEDs. They include bifurcation of the market between commoditised consumer LEDs and higher-end, leading-edge applications; transition of applications from incandescent to LED usage; standardisation and green initiatives; consolidation within the industry; the emergence of new niche illumination applications, and new markets for mature applications.
Worldwide semiconductor revenue is forecast to reach $198 billion in 2009, a 22,4% decline from 2008 revenue of $255 billion, according to the latest projections by Gartner. This outlook is slightly better than the first quarter projections, when Gartner forecast semiconductor revenue to decline 24,1% in 2009. Application-specific standard product (ASSP) will continue to lead semiconductor revenue, as it is forecast to total $51,9 billion in 2009, a 24,2% decline from 2008. The memory market will be the No. 2 segment for them as it totals $39,4 billion, a 16,8% decline from 2008. The microcomponents segment (microprocessors, microcontroller units, digital signal processors) will drop from the No. 2 spot in 2008 to the No. 3 spot in 2009. Microcomponents are projected to reach $37,3 billion, a 23,6% decline from 2008.
Accelerometers in recent years have emerged as a critical input device for some of the world’s hottest electronic products, causing shipments to boom. This will make accelerometers the top-selling micro electromechanical system (MEMS) device by 2013, according to iSuppli. The global MEMS accelerometer market is expected to expand to $1,7 billion in 2013, up from $947,7 million in 2007. The boom in accelerometer demand will come as a boon to the health of the overall MEMS market. Although global MEMS revenue will decline by 8% in 2009 – the second decline in market history following a 7% decrease in 2008 – accelerometers will still manage 1,8% growth. Accelerometer revenue will rise by 14,1% in 2010 and should maintain double-digit percentage growth in 2011 and 2012.
Worldwide sales of semiconductors rose to $15,6 billion in April, an increase of 6,4 % from March when sales were $14,7 billion, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has reported. April sales were 25% lower than April 2008 when sales were $20,9 billion. All sales numbers represent a three-month moving average of global semiconductor sales. SIA noted that the worldwide automotive market, which accounts for about 7% of total semiconductor sales, remains weak. Corporate information technology spending has also lagged normal patterns as companies have lengthened replacement cycles. The consumer electronics sector presents a mixed picture, with analysts projecting increased unit sales of digital televisions and hand-held game players, but lower unit sales of most other consumer electronics products.
According to research by Databeans, demand for signal conditioning circuits, amplifiers and comparators, was unseasonably strong in April and to a certain extent in March as well. Demand was driven by Asia and Japan where orders began rolling in again to replenish anaemic inventories. These circuits are used in all market segments and constitute close to 20% of the standard analog IC market. By the end of 2008, this market reached a high of nearly $3 billion, but the last two quarters were distressing as suppliers watched the overall TAM drop 19% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and another 25% in the first quarter of 2009. Now into the second quarter, it appears that an inventory replenishment is occurring which has started in Japan and Asia and should gain momentum in Europe and the Americas. Currently, Databeans is expecting the second quarter TAM for signal conditioning to be up 16% over the first quarter and continue to climb with a 7% gain in the third quarter. Unfortunately, the overall year is still expected to be down 26% with worldwide revenue expected at $2,2 billion.
Technology
Lockheed Martin Space Systems has adopted a model-based design approach using tools from The MathWorks to develop a dual-stage, satellite-based channelliser. Also known as a bent-pipe transponder, the channelliser lets Lockheed Martin move bandwidth on-demand between users and locations, optimising the capacity of fixed-band satellite communications systems. Using model-based design, Lockheed Martin engineers were able to rapidly implement and verify design changes driven by evolving requirements. Overall, they reportedly reduced VHDL verification time by 90% and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) development time from 12 months to four months.
Analog Devices has announced that its Blackfin BF531 processors will drive Siemens’ Energy Sectors’ Automated Metering and Information System (AMIS). Utilising Analog Devices’ Blackfin convergent processor’s powerful processing capacity, AMIS delivers dynamic demand response energy usage communication between the consumer and the energy provider, facilitating whole grid energy management. Blackfin calculates the consumer energy usage at the smart meter and performs the powerline modem functions, creating an efficient bidirectional communication flow with the power line concentrator.
Hydrogen-powered cars are reportedly one step closer to reality thanks to a new compound discovered by scientists in the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science at the US DOE’s (department of energy) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The newly discovered material is a high-pressure form of ammonia borane, a solid material which itself is already imbued with ample hydrogen. By working with the parent material at high pressure in a hydrogen-enriched atmosphere, the scientists were able to ratchet up the hydrogen content of the material by roughly 50%. This new material can store around 30% of its weight as useable hydrogen, and may help researchers build a fuel cell small and portable enough to be practical for powering a car.
A company called Powercast has teamed up with supercapacitor maker Cap-XX, to develop an RF technology that requires no batteries for operation. The system was initially developed by Powercast as a way to transmit and receive energy wirelessly, which still required a power source to be installed at the transmitter side. In order to break into the general market for wireless sensors, where battery replacement costs can make a solution prohibitive, the company pioneered the use of supercapacitors to store received energy. Compared to batteries, supercapacitors have advantages such as unlimited charge-discharge cycles and tolerance of extreme temperatures.
austriamicrosystems and the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS) have announced a cooperation agreement to develop a new generation of magnetic motion sensing ICs, which will be based on Fraunhofer’s patented HallinOne magnetic sensor technology. The pair will develop a family of magnetic encoder products specifically targeted for applications within the industrial, medical and automotive markets, which austriamicrosystems will offer as a part of its magnetic encoder IC portfolio. HallinOne technology allows measuring of magnetic fields in horizontal and vertical dimensions, providing magnitude and direction of the magnetic field at any measured point. The HallinOne sensor can be implemented in a standard CMOS process, and can be integrated with signal processing on a single die.
Electronic memory chips may soon gain the ability to bend and twist as a result of work by engineers at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who claim to have found a way to build a flexible memory component out of inexpensive, readily available materials. Though not yet ready for the marketplace, the new device is promising not only because of its potential applications in medicine and other fields, but because it also appears to possess the characteristics of a memristor, a fundamentally new component for electronic circuits that industry scientists developed in 2008. Because the active component of the device can be fabricated from a liquid, there is the potential that in the future it will be possible to print the entire memory device as simply and inexpensively as printing a slide on an overhead transparency.
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version