Overseas
Business
Texas Instruments announced fourth-quarter 2009 revenue of $3,00 billion, net income of $655 million and earnings per share (EPS) of $0,52. These figures compare to third quarter 2009 revenue of $2,88 billion, net income of $538 million and earnings per share (EPS) of $0,42, and fourth quarter 2008 revenue of $2,49 billion, net income of $107 million and earnings per share (EPS) of $0,08. For the full 2009 fiscal year, revenue was $10,43 billion, down 17% from last year’s $12,50 billion; net income was $1,47 billion, 23% less than in 2008; and EPS was $1,15, 20% down on last year’s $1,44.
RF Micro Devices has reported financial results for its fiscal 2010 third quarter ended 2 January 2010. December 2009 quarterly revenue increased approximately 24% year-over-year to $250,3 million. GAAP net income was $24,9 million, or $0,09 per diluted share, compared to last year’s $788,5 million net loss and diluted loss per share of $3,00.
Cree announced record revenue of $199,5 million for its second quarter of fiscal 2010, ended 27 December 2009. This represents a 35% increase compared to revenue of $147,6 million reported for the second fiscal quarter last year and an 18% increase compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2010. GAAP net income for the second quarter increased 216% year-over-year to $33,8 million, or $0,32 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $10,7 million, or $0,12 per diluted share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2009.
Announcing financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended 31 December 2009, Freescale Semiconductor reported net sales for the most recent quarter of $951 million, compared to $893 million in the third quarter of 2009 and $940 million in the fourth quarter last year. Among the product categories that performed better sequentially were microcontrollers, RF, analog and sensors, and networking and multimedia. Cellular net sales were down, however, as were sales of ‘other’ components. For the full year, net sales went from $5,23 billion in 2008 down to $3,51 last year. However, net income in 2009 was a strong $748 million, compared to a net loss of $7,94 billion in 2008.
Atmel announced that it will continue to explore the potential sale of the company’s smartcard business located in France and the UK, and that it intends to discontinue potential sale discussions for its customer specific products and aerospace businesses.
Global chip foundry TSMC announced consolidated revenue of NT$92,09 billion, net income of NT$32,67 billion, and diluted earnings per share of NT$1,26 for the fourth quarter ended 31 December 2009. Year-over-year, fourth quarter revenue increased 42,6% while net income increased 162,5% and diluted EPS increased 162,7%. Compared to the third quarter of 2009, fourth quarter results represent a 2,4% increase in revenue, a 6,9% increase in net income, and a 7,2% increase in diluted EPS. As the global economy gradually recovered, fourth quarter saw a continued improvement in wafer sales with computer related applications growing strongly and consumer related applications declining seasonally.
STMicroelectronics has reported financial results for the 2009 fourth quarter and full year ended 31 December 2009. Net revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 totalled $2,58 billion and included sales recorded by ST-Ericsson as consolidated by ST. Net revenues increased 13,6% sequentially, reflecting an increase in demand across all of ST’s served market segments, as well as in all regions, with particular strength in Japan, Greater China and the Americas. Net revenues for the full year 2009 were $8,51 billion, compared to 2008 revenues of $9,84 billion. Net loss was $1,13 billion in 2009, or $1,29 per share, compared to a net loss of $786 million or $0,88 per share in 2008.
National Instruments reported quarterly revenue of $202 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, which represents a 22% sequential increase and is flat year-over-year. Revenue growth in the quarter was lower than year-over-year order growth due to a record $8 million net increase in deferred revenue, primarily resulting from strong sequential growth in software sales in Q4, which is expected to benefit revenue in future quarters. In the most recent quarter, virtual instrumentation and graphical system design product sales, which constitute the majority of the company’s product portfolio, were up 23% from Q3 2009.
PLX Technology announced record fourth quarter 2009 revenues of $26,6 million and net income of $2,6 million, or $0,07 per diluted share. These figures compare favourably with 2008’s fourth quarter revenues of $14,2 million and net loss of $58,3 million, or $2,08 per diluted share. For 2009, the company reported revenue of $82,8 million and a net loss of $18,8 million or $0,53 per diluted share. In 2008, revenue was $81,1 million and net loss was $56,5 million, or $2,00 per diluted share.
Infineon Technologies reported results for the first quarter of its 2010 fiscal year, ended 31 December 2009. Revenues were 941 million Euros, a strong increase of 10% compared to the fourth quarter of the 2009 fiscal year and of 27% year-over-year. Net income for the first quarter was 66 million Euros compared to 14 million Euros in the prior quarter. Diluted earnings per share were $0,06, compared to $0,02 in the previous quarter and loss per share of $0,46 in the first quarter of 2009.
STMicroelectronics’ and Ericsson’s joint venture ST-Ericsson reported net sales of $740 million for the fourth quarter of 2009, a 2% sequential increase. Net loss decreased from $125 million in the previous quarter to $112 million. According to the company, inventory management continued to produce positive results thanks to improved efficiency in the supply chain. Inventory declined by $33 million, reaching a level of $244 million at the end of the quarter.
Fairchild Semiconductor reported fourth quarter sales of $354,5 million, up 7% from the prior quarter and 11% higher than the fourth quarter of 2008. Net income was $13,1 million or $0,10 per diluted share, compared to net income of $2,7 million or $0,02 per diluted share in the prior quarter and a net loss of $218,1 million or $1,76 per share in the fourth quarter of 2008. Full year revenues for 2009 were $1,2 billion, a decrease of 25% compared to 2008. Fairchild reported a net loss of $60 million or $0,49 per share in 2009, compared to a net loss of $167 million or $1,35 per share in 2008.
Xilinx announced record third quarter fiscal 2010 sales of $513,3 million, up 24% sequentially and up 12% from the third quarter of the prior fiscal year. Third quarter net income was $106,9 million, or $0,38 per diluted share, including previously announced restructuring charges totalling $5,5 million, or approximately $0,02 per diluted share.
Companies
NXP and Intrinsic-ID, an emerging semiconductor intellectual property and services provider, have announced a collaborative agreement to license and deploy a hardware intrinsic security (HIS) solution in NXP’s next-generation SmartMX security chip technology. The partnership enables NXP to utilise Intrinsic-ID’s Quiddikey solution to secure SmartMX-powered assets against cloning, tampering, theft-of-service and reverse engineering. HIS combines the advantages of existing approaches by extracting the secret key from the hardware instead of storing it. This approach allows a device to generate a secret key only when needed and power down with no key present. Because no key is stored, attackers have nothing to find.
Apple may be facing a legal dispute with STMicroelectronics over the use of the trademark iPad, the name given by Apple to its latest tablet-style computer. ST already owns the iPAD trademark in the EU for its range of Integrated Passive and Active Devices. Although there is no commonality between the two products in terms of technology, ST is reported to be mulling the situation.
Industry
In 2009, worldwide shipments of Wi-Fi ICs increased approximately 28% compared to 2008, according to data from ABI Research. Total revenue is expected to achieve an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18% between 2009 and 2014. In recent years almost all laptops, netbooks, MIDs and smartbooks have shipped with Wi-Fi embedded, a trend that will continue for some time to come. Wi-Fi IC placement in mobile handsets grew by more than 50% in 2009 and Wi-Fi-enabled handsets will account for 40% of the total of handsets shipped in 2014. Beyond the already established segments, portable media players with Wi-Fi have also seen strong growth which will continue through 2014. More and more consumer electronic devices, such as digital still cameras, digital camcorders, TVs, DVD players and set-top boxes (STBs) are adopting Wi-Fi. The total shipments of Wi-Fi enabled consumer electronic devices increased 33% in 2009 compared to 2008.
IMS Research has released a market research report characterising the supply side of white and RGB LED production used for high brightness (HB) LEDs. By the end of 2009, there were 1413 reactors at 75 manufacturers with a capacity of 188 billion dice/year. Nichia has a dominant position with a 42% share and over $2 billion in in-spec (binned) dice revenues due to the company’s technical and IP leadership in the white LED market. Cree’s share has surged to 11% due to its strong focus on the rapidly growing solid state lighting market. The report predicts a 2010 shortage of 12–14 billion binned dice, with the shortage projected to continue well into 2013.
The ZigBee Alliance has started development of ZigBee Retail Services, a new standard focusing on the retail experience from point-of-manufacture to point-of-sale. This effort is expected to utilise the wide range of ZigBee’s existing profile capabilities, fully leverage the advantages of ZigBee’s open global solution set, and add significant new capabilities to improve the retail supply chain. The standard will define applications for mobile terminals and offer plug-in modules to simplify adoption.
Benefiting from the chip industry’s deft capacity management in 2009, the global semiconductor manufacturing business is set for a strong recovery in 2010, with rising utilisation rates spurring an increase in capital spending for the year. Global spending on semiconductor manufacturing equipment is expected to rise by 46,8% in 2010 compared in 2009, bringing an end to three consecutive years of decline, according to a report from iSuppli. Throughout 2009, the uncertainty of global economics dictated that semiconductor companies manage their operations conservatively. Amid plunging semiconductor sales and major economic uncertainty, global semiconductor manufacturing capacity began dropping in the fourth quarter of 2008, declining to 71%, down 18,1% from 87% in the third quarter. Utilisation fell again in the first quarter of 2009, decreasing to 48%, down 44,9% from the fourth quarter of 2008.
While an estimated 90% of ultra-mobile devices (UMDs) shipped in 2009 were based on an x86 processor architecture, the introduction of ARM-based systems introduces greater choice and differentiation for system vendors. ABI Research forecasts that annual UMD shipments of netbooks, MIDs, smartbooks and UMPCs based on ARM instruction sets will overtake x86-based UMDs in 2013. The important netbook segment of the UMD market is now moving into its second generation, and a growing number of netbooks based on ARM platforms are now appearing in the market, a trend no doubt helped by the perception that ARM-based systems are heavily oriented towards an ‘always connected’ mode of operation. Additionally, ARM-based products are coming out in a growing variety of different form-factors including tablets.
Technology
Belgian researcher IMEC and its associated laboratory INTEC at the Ghent University have developed an ultra-small and fast, electrically pumped all-optical memory on a silicon chip with record low power consumption. This could pave the way for optical packet switching with drastically reduced overall power consumption in high-speed, high data rate optical telecommunication systems. The optical random access memory has been achieved with ultra-compact micro-disk lasers with a diameter of 7,5 μm. The laser light can either propagate in the clockwise or counter-clockwise direction and one can switch between these two laser modes using short optical pulses. The lasers, implemented themselves in Indium Phosphide membranes, are heterogeneously integrated onto passive silicon waveguide circuits. This allows optical interconnection of different memory cells using silicon wires. It also allows the use of strongly developed silicon-based microelectronics fabrication technology, making it a cost-effective solution.
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version