South Africa
On 13 October 2009 the CSIR Satellite Applications Centre received a video stream from South Africa’s very own, recently launched satellite, SumbandilaSAT or ZA002. This milestone followed the launch of the satellite on 17 September 2009 and its successful transfer into orbit around the Earth. SumbandilaSAT is a project of the Department of Science and Technology. The CSIR received the video stream in parallel with Stellenbosch-based Sunspace, the company responsible for building the satellite. The video stream can be viewed on the Sumbandila mission blog (http://sumbandilamission.blogspot.com) and on YouTube.
Overseas
Business
Analog Devices announced financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year ended 31 October 2009. Revenue for the quarter was $572 million, an increase of 16% from the immediately prior quarter and a decrease of 13% from the same period one year prior. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations was $0,36, compared to $0,22 in the immediately prior quarter, and $0,49 in the same period of the previous year. For the year, revenue was $2 billion, a decrease of 22% from $2,6 billion recorded in fiscal year 2008. Diluted EPS from continuing operations was $0,85, compared to $1,77 in fiscal 2008. Non-GAAP diluted EPS from continuing operations in fiscal 2009 was $0,97, compared to $1,77 in fiscal 2008.
Agilent Technologies reported revenues of $1,17 billion for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, 21% below the previous year. Fourth quarter GAAP net income was $25 million, or $0,07 per diluted share. Last year’s fourth quarter GAAP net income was $231 million, or $0,64 per share. During the fourth quarter, Agilent had restructuring and asset impairment charges of $60 million and $10 million of non-cash amortisation. Excluding these items and $16 million of other net charges, the company reported fourth quarter adjusted net income of $111 million, or $0,32 per share. On a comparable basis, the company earned $223 million, or $0,62 per share, the previous year.
As part of its global efforts to align its R&D operations to be in line with its focused portfolio of future products, Nokia is reducing its R&D activities in Japan. The announcement impacts approximately 220 employees in Japan. The total number would represent slightly more than 1% of Nokia’s R&D personnel globally.
Announcing results for its fiscal third quarter of 2010, ending 31 October 2009, Mentor Graphics reported revenues of $189,2 million, non-GAAP earnings per share of $0,05, and a GAAP loss per share of $0,28. For the fiscal fourth quarter ending 31 January 2010, the company expects revenue of about $230 million, non-GAAP earnings per share of about $0,28 and GAAP earnings per share of about $0,33.
Companies
Intel has agreed to pay AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) some $1,25 billion to settle an assortment of legal disputes between the two companies, including patent cross-licence disputes and antitrust litigation. As part of the agreement, the rivals have also obtained patent rights from a new five-year cross-licence agreement and have both given up claims of breach from their previous licence agreement, issued in 2001. Intel has also agreed to abide by a set of business practice provisions including Intel not offering rebates or discounts that limit or restrict a customer’s MPU choices; Intel not taking actions that limit or delay purchases or use of specified AMD products; and Intel regularly instructing personnel on the terms of its agreement with AMD.
Wind River and Kontron have announced a global, multiyear agreement under which Kontron will distribute Wind River’s VxWorks and Wind River Linux operating systems. This agreement extends a decade-long collaboration, and is expected to extend the software and service offerings of Wind River and Kontron. The two companies will initially target the industrial, medical, military and aerospace, transportation and networking market segments.
Novatel Wireless announced its entry into the machine-to-machine (M2M) market through a multiyear memorandum of understanding with Cinterion Wireless Modules. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will cooperate to produce Novatel-developed, co-branded CDMA modules utilising the Cinterion form factor. The companies will jointly drive all aspects of sales, marketing and technical support for M2M solutions utilising their respective sales channels.
Ixys has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Zilog, a supplier of application-specific, embedded microcontroller units (MCUs) that are system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for industrial and consumer markets. Under the terms of the agreement, Ixys will acquire all of Zilog’s outstanding common shares for $3,5858 per share in cash, or approximately $62,4 million. The combination of the two companies with complementing technologies will allow Ixys and Zilog to leverage analog power management with digital control.
ON Semiconductor and California Micro Devices (CMD) announced the signing of a merger agreement pursuant to which ON Semiconductor will acquire CMD through a cash tender offer of $4,70 per share. With net cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of approximately $45 million at the end of November 2009, the transaction value of CMD represents an enterprise value of approximately $63 million and an equity value of approximately $108 million, based on common stock outstanding and issued.
Intersil has agreed to acquire Rock Semiconductor, a privately-held, fabless semiconductor company with technology in highly integrated power management ICs. Rock Semiconductor provides high-performance analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for wireless, audio, video and data communications solutions. Rock’s products are primarily used in the consumer end market in applications such as cellular phones, personal navigation devices, portable multimedia players and other types of popular consumer electronics products. Financial details of the deal were withheld.
Infineon Technologies has settled a patent infringement lawsuit with Fairchild Semiconductor. The patents in the suit and counter suit consisted of 14 patents related to super-junction power transistors along with trench power MOSFETs and IGBT power transistors. The lawsuit has been settled through a broad patent cross-licence relating to semiconductor technology. As part of the agreement, Fairchild will make payments to Infineon. The specific terms and conditions of the agreement have not been disclosed.
Industry
Worldwide PC microprocessor shipments in the third calendar quarter of 2009 (3Q09) rose substantially and to all-time record levels for a single quarter, according to new data from IDC. The data indicates that PC processor unit shipments in 3Q09 rose 23% compared to 2Q09, growth that is approximately double the normal growth in unit shipments for the same period. In terms of revenue, the PC processor market grew more than 14% quarter over quarter to $7,4 billion. Looking at market performance by PC form factor, mobile PC processors continue to drive growth. Mobile PC processors, which include Intel’s Atom processors designed for mini-notebook PCs (which Intel calls ‘Netbooks’), increased 35,7% in 3Q09 compared to 2Q09. Desktop PC processors grew 11,4% quarter over quarter and x86 server processors grew 12,2% quarter over quarter.
The SOI Industry Consortium, aimed at accelerating silicon-on-insulator (SOI) innovation into broad markets, announced that Mentor Graphics has joined the worldwide organisation. As an active member and a leader in design enablement, Mentor will expand EDA tool and methodology support for SOI technology. This engagement connects Mentor’s strengths in low-power solutions with the inherent energy-efficiency benefits of SOI technology.
Analysis of findings from Semicast’s Embedded Processing Service shows that ARM is forecast to maintain its position as the leading architecture for 32-bit embedded processors in the automotive sector in 2009, ahead of power architecture. ARM is estimated to have overtaken power architecture as the leading 32-bit architecture in the automotive sector in 2008. Semicast judges that ARM will maintain its lead in 2009 and then consolidate its position in 2010 and over the medium term, with a growth rate of 16%. In comparison, the growth rate for power architecture is forecast to be 5%.
2009 marked the PV (photovoltaic) industry’s first ‘Solar Cycle,’ with end-market demand shrinking 14% year-on-year, according to a DisplaySearch report. The contraction was caused by changes in Spain’s generous incentive policy, and was severely aggravated by the worldwide economic crisis and tight credit markets. Excess manufacturing capacity has helped push average PV system prices down more than 25%. But these lower prices, diversification of the demand base and positive incentive movement in multiple regions are now expected to drive substantially higher demand in 2010, with market growth of 38% expected this year.
The IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA) announced the formation of the Design Technology Committee. This newly formed group under CEDA will focus on the viewpoint of the major EDA users in identifying future needs of the system and semiconductor communities toward the EDA industry. It is further anticipated that this new group will coordinate closely with existing standards development organisations, such as Accellera, the IEEE DA Standards Committee, and the Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2).
From the built-in electronic compass in Apple’s iPhone, to the turn-by-turn directions in Motorola’s Droid, consumers love the navigation functions in their cellphones, causing shipments of magnetic sensors for electronic compasses to boom in the coming years, according to iSuppli. Global shipments of magnetic sensors for electronic compasses in cellphones are set to rise by a factor of more than 60 from 2008 to 2013. Shipments will amount to 540,7 million units in 2013, up from just 8,7 million in 2008. 2009 generated particularly impressive growth, with shipments rising to 80,1 million units, up nearly 10 times from 8,7 million in 2008.
According to a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight, 1,4% of the mobile network connections worldwide were used for wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communication at the end of 2009. In the next five years, the total number of wireless M2M connections is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25,6% to reach 187,1 million connections in 2014. By the same year, M2M as a share of the total number of cellular connections is projected to reach 3,1%.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced the adoption of Bluetooth low energy wireless technology, which is the hallmark feature of the Bluetooth Core Specification Version 4.0. As an enhancement to the specification, Bluetooth low energy technology opens entirely new markets for devices requiring low-cost and low-power wireless connectivity. Many markets such as healthcare, sports and fitness, security and home entertainment will be enhanced with the availability of small coin-cell battery powered wireless products and sensors now enabled by Bluetooth wireless technology.
Technology
An LED that offers high efficiency, good colour rendering and a pleasant warm white light has been developed in the laboratories of Osram Opto Semiconductors. The prototype offers three important properties that together are essential for general illumination applications, namely a colour temperature of 3000 K, a colour rendering index of 82 and an efficiency of 104 lm/W. At 3000 K the light colour of the LED is similar to that of a halogen lamp. Its colour location is precisely on the Planckian curve, ie, the light is exactly white, showing no shift to the green spectral region.
Using a precision technique for making superconducting thin films layer-by-layer, physicists at the US Department of Energy (DOE) have identified a single layer responsible for one such material’s ability to carry current with no energy loss. The technique could be used to engineer ultrathin films with ‘tunable’ superconductivity for more efficient electronic devices. The scientists identified the layer responsible for the material’s high-temperature superconductivity by systematically adding zinc, known to dampen superconductivity in cuprates, to each layer one by one. The added zinc lowered the superconducting transition temperature only when it was placed in a specific copper-oxide layer, proving that that single layer, less than one nanometre thick, is the ‘hot’ one. The discovery that high-temperature superconductivity can exist, undiminished, in a single copper-oxide layer, opens the door to the fabrication of electronic devices where the superconducting properties can be controlled by external electric or magnetic fields.
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