South Africa
Europe*Star has launched its regional presence in Southern Africa with an office in Cape Town. At the official inauguration held in Johannesburg in January, Europe*Star said its main aim in the region is to become a key provider of the technically advanced satellite capacity necessary for Africa to develop as a major player in the global telecommunications marketplace. The Europe*Star office is headed up by Roy Ingle, Europe*Star's Regional Director for Africa, who will oversee Europe*Star's activities throughout South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland. The 30-transponder Ku-band geostationary satellite enables a wide variety of applications for the Internet community, TV broadcasters and content providers, applications service providers, and network/teleport operators. In addition, it also serves applications such as rural communications and telemedicine.
Energy Measurements has opened a dedicated operation - Cashpower Sudamericana SA - in Argentina to supply Cashpower2000 prepayment meters and revenue management solutions to South American electricity service providers. A joint venture between Siemens and Spescom, Energy Measurements has become an international leader in the prepayment electricity market with its patented encryption technology and keypad-based system that replaces traditional swipe card methods.
Sensormatic Distribution, South African distributor of IFS products, is hosting a series of one-day fibre-optics seminars in Johannesburg and Cape Town. IFS is a world-leading authority on fibres. Conducted by Iain Deuchars, Managing Director of International Fiber Systems (Europe) in the UK, the seminars will create a better awareness and understanding of the uses and applications of fibre. The seminars are aimed at anyone who would benefit from a clearer understanding of the theory and application of fibre, including security systems integrators, IT managers, architects, engineers and technicians, and systems specifiers. In Johannesburg, the seminars will be held at the Crowne Plaza in Rivonia on 5 and 6 March, followed by sessions at the Holiday Inn Garden Court on the Eastern Boulevard in Cape Town on 8 and 9 March. Contact Gorett McCarthy at Sensormatic Distribution on (011) 466 0190, [email protected] for information.
Moves:
Electronic Products Design has moved to: 102 Witch-Hazel Street Einstein Park II Highveld Techno Park Centurion, tel: (012) 665 9700. Fax stays the same at (012) 665 0229.
Impact Memec South Africa has moved to new offices in Bartlett Lake Office Park, Bartlett, Boksburg. Contact details are: tel: (011) 897 8600, fax: (011) 918 3193. Impact Memec also has offices in Cape Town: tel: (021) 674 4104; fax: (021) 674 0854.
World News
Business
Infineon reported a 30% sequential drop in revenues to $1,53bn in the company's fiscal first quarter, ended 31 December, compared to $2,19bn in the prior three-month period. Compared to a year ago, Infineon's revenues were up 8%. Infineon said that revenues increased sequentially in all nonmemory businesses but decreased from record sales in fourth quarter 2000 due to the weakness in the DRAM market. Memory revenues sank 61% sequentially in the final three months of 2000, compared to the previous quarter. Outside of memory products Infineon said that chip sales rose 5% sequentially to $1,04bn from $995 million in the prior quarter. The chip maker posted a net income of $258 million in the last fiscal quarter compared to $535m in the prior quarter, ended 30 September, and $122m in the quarter a year ago. Infineon said it is confident about a strong business development in 2001-based on the company's key competencies in high growth markets and its valuable strategic customer base. Growth drivers for the company will be the continued strong demand in communications, particularly in smartcard applications and in the infrastructure business, like broadband and optical networking, where so far demand exceeded capacity, it said.
International Rectifier grew revenue by 57% year-to-year and posted record earnings in its second fiscal quarter. Net income increased sharply year-to-year, to reach $46,5m on revenue of $268,1m, compared to net income of $12,4m on revenue of $171,1m in the prior-year quarter. It said revenue for analog power ICs, advanced-circuit devices, and power systems surged 123% year-to-year, and that these proprietary products accounted for 31% of revenue in the period, compared to 21% in the prior-year period. Following the recent completion of several strategic acquisitions, IR said it expects proprietary products to account for approximately 35% of the company's business in the current quarter and to approach 40% by fiscal year-end. Alex Lidow, CEO said that IR's richer product mix and higher IR content per application were fundamental to the record sales and profits in the quarter. He adds that IR's focus on the industry's fastest-growing market segments (in difficult and uncertain market conditions) continues to yield significant benefits, with orders for proprietary products growing 157% year-to-year.
STMicroelectronics has reported record financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended 31 December 2000. Net revenues for the fourth quarter rose 48,3% to $2191,7m, from $1478,2m in the 1999 fourth quarter. Sales of differentiated products totalled $1367,1m in the 2000 fourth quarter, increasing 49,3% over the year-ago quarter. Differentiated products represented 62,4% of fourth quarter revenues. Fourth quarter gross profit exceeded $1bn for the first time in the company's history, it said. Gross profit was $1038,6m in the 2000 fourth quarter, increasing 74,3% over the year-ago period. STMicro also posted strong sequential performance. Fourth quarter net revenues increased 7,3% over third quarter levels, and operating income was up 10,0% over the prior period. According to Pasquale Pistorio, President and CEO, the greatest year-over-year gains were in telecom, consumer and computer applications which increased 74,5%, 43,5%, and 41,0% respectively. He said that on a sequential basis, 17,6% and 12,8% respective increases in telecom and computer more than offset a 7,5% decline in consumer, illustrating the advantages of ST's strategy to emphasise a carefully chosen range of specific high-growth applications. For the entire year, ST's net revenues reached $7,8bn, a 54,5% increase over $5,1bn in 1999. The company's net income was $1,5bn vs $547,3m in 1999.
Intersil, completing its first year as an independent company after splitting from former parent Harris, has reported revenue of $800m. Intersil fourth quarter revenues were $216,8m, up from $136,6 in fourth quarter 1999. Net income for the quarter was $27,9m. The company announced in January its intentions to sell its discrete power business to Fairchild Semiconductor for $338m. Intersil said this will allow it to focus on wireless access and communications and will set the stage for continued revenue and profit growth.
Fairchild Semiconductor reported revenues slipped sequentially 2% from $476m in the prior third-quarter period but were up 30% from $361m in Q4 1999. Anticipating a 10% sequential drop in first quarter sales, the company said it is trimming operating costs by cutting back on the use of contract manufacturers to help utilise its own wafer fabs and final assembly plants. Fairchild expects second-half 2001 revenues to be approximately 7-9% higher than the first half, in line with current projected industry growth rates.
PMC-Sierra reported fourth-quarter net earnings of $43,8m, compared with $17,3m, for the year earlier. Excluding one-time costs, the company had operating earnings of $62,5m, compared with $17,3m during the same period last year. Revenue for the quarter was $231,7m, more than twice the figure in the year-ago period, it said.
LSI Logic has posted a 3% sequential gain in revenues to $751m in the fourth quarter 2000 from $728m in the previous quarter. The company said that communications markets are growing at slower rates because of weaker economic conditions and customers are attempting to reduce inventories. It has warned that it now expects sales to slip 12% in the current quarter and estimates growth for LSI Logic of approximately 10% in 2001 with growth accelerating in the second half of the year. For the quarter, ended 31 December, LSI Logic reported a net income of $116,3m compared to $76,4m in the period a year ago. The company had record revenues of $2,7bn in 2000 and a net income of $416,6m for the entire year. It had sales of $2,1bn and net income of $173,5m in 1999.
Samsung Electronics reported net earnings of $5bn in 2000, double 1999's $2,47bn. Sales reached $26,6bn for the year, up 31% from $20,3bn the previous year. Samsung Electronics said it will increase its capital investment to $6bn and that it will be able to finance most of the investment out of operating funds, based on its profitability. The company cited its good earnings to favourable DRAM prices for the first half of the year, and continued strong market in SRAMs, where Samsung is the global leader.
Linear Technology reported second-quarter results above analyst expectations. It said revenues rose 59% from a year ago to $258,45m, above its own forecasts. Net income was $114,76m in the quarter.
Atmel has announced record results for the fourth quarter and full year ended 31 December 2000. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2000 totalled $574,3m up 48% from a year ago, and up 8% sequentially. Net income for the fourth quarter of 2000 totaled $86,3m. Company reported net income of $76,5m versus net income of $33m for the year previous. Revenues for 2000 totaled $2,012m and net income was $265,9m. Revenues for 1999 totalled $1,330m and before the cumulative effect of an accounting change made in the first quarter of 1999, net income was $82,5m.
Although Qualcomm still plans to spin-off its semiconductor operations into a new and independent company, it has announced that it has delayed the IPO to October of this year. Qualcomm announced that its revenues of $684m for the first quarter ended 31 December were down 37% from the $1,1bn figure posted a year ago. The shortfall in sales was due to the sale of its handset business to Japan's Kyocera last year. The company also reported a pre-tax loss of $688m in the first quarter, compared to a profit of $282m in the year ago period. It reported a net loss of $229m in the period, compared to a profit of $177m in the year ago period. The company however predicts strong demand for its code-division multiple access (CDMA) based chips sets and expects to ship approximately 16m CDMA-based chip sets during the second quarter of this year, compared to 15m units in the first quarter and 11 million units in the year ago period. Due to the revised status of its troubled satellite communications venture Globalstar, Qualcomm recorded total charges of $595m relating to reserves against certain assets and for related obligations, it said.
Actel has reported that net income declined 40% in the fourth quarter ended 31 December 2000. It said the decline was, in part, due to an acquisition and the repurchase of company stock. Net income in the fourth quarter was $3,5m, down 40% from the $5,8m, for the year ago period. During the quarter, Actel completed its acquisition of GateField and repurchased Actel stock worth $19,6 million. It said revenue in the fourth quarter was $60,1m, compared with $46m for the fourth quarter a year ago, an increase of 31%. Net income for the fiscal year was $43,4m, up 103% from fiscal 1999. For the full fiscal year, Actel posted record revenue of $226,4m, compared with $171,7m for fiscal 1999, an increase of 32%.
Cirrus Logic has announced that it expects sales to be flat in the current quarter from $208m in its fiscal third quarter, ended 30 December. For the third fiscal quarter, Cirrus' revenues sequentially increased 10% to $208m from $189,5m in the prior quarter and increased 38% from $150,8m in the same period a year ago. Cirrus posted a net income of $22,4m in the just-ended quarter vs $3,3m in the period a year ago. Last year, Cirrus posted sales of $564m.
Lattice Semiconductor posted net income for the fourth quarter ended 31 December of $23,6m, up 195% from the $8m, reported in the same quarter a year ago. Profits rose about 4% from $22,7m, in Q3. Revenue for the quarter was $150,8m, an increase of 31% over the $115m reported in the same quarter a year ago but flat in comparison to the $151m reported last quarter. Lattice designs, develops, and markets high performance programmable logic devices, and related software. For the year 2000, revenue reached $567,8m and net income totaled $167,9m.
Xilinx reported a net loss of $10,5m on sales of $450,1m in the company's fiscal third quarter. The net loss included charges and merger costs. Excluding those items, the programmable logic supplier said its income was $109,3m. Xilinx's fiscal third-quarter revenues increased 70% from $264,3m in the period a year ago. Sequentially, revenues were up 3% from $437,4 in the prior three-month period.
Companies
Maxim Integrated Products is acquiring specialty circuit manufacturer Dallas Semiconductor for approximately $2,5bn in stock. The deal is expected to be completed during the second quarter, subject to approval by Dallas Semiconductor's stockholders and regulators. According to Maxim President and CEO, Jack Gifford, Dallas has many complementary product lines to Maxim's, and Maxim plans to boost Dallas Semiconductor's profile as a supplier of digital and mixed-signal circuits in both the domestic and the international markets. Last year Dallas Semiconductor earned $95,4m, up 40% from a year ago, while Maxim earned $280,6m, up 43%, from the previous year.
Fairchild Semiconductor has announced plans to acquire the discrete power chip business from Intersil for $338m in cash. The purchase is aimed at making Fairchild the world's second largest supplier of power MOSFET devices with about 20% of the $3bn market.
Corning is buying Tropel, a leading maker of measuring instruments for the semiconductor industry, for about $190m. Corning, one of the world's biggest optical-networking manufacturers, said New York-based Tropel's optical components and metrology instruments will complement its lenses that provide the high transmission critical to miniaturising computer chips. The subsidiary will be called Corning Tropel.
Simtek, through its recent acquisitions of Integrated Logic Systems and MacroTech Semiconductor, has formed the Simtek Integrated Logic business unit. The new division will support the conversion of expensive PLDs to the company's own, low-cost ASIC products. Simtek says it is looking to replace FPGAs, especially Xilinx's XC4000 family of products. Simtek claims its ASIC products typically consume half the power and can be housed in smaller packages than FPGAs.
Swedish mobile phone giant Ericsson has signed a deal with Flextronics to take over all production of its cellular phones. Singapore-based Flextronics is scheduled to take over Ericsson's mobile phone-related facilities in Brazil, Malaysia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and parts of the United States plant in Lynchburg. Ericsson's joint ventures in China will not be affected. About 4200 Ericsson employees will join Flextronics, it said. Ericsson said it will now focus on research and development, design and sales and marketing.For the first quarter 2001, Ericsson expects to see continued strong growth for systems, but lower sales for phones.
Microcosm Technologies, a leader in MEMS development is changing its name to Coventor. It says the name better reflects the company's position as a visionary product development company that partners with customers to transform ideas into innovative products made possible by MEMS.
Intel and Synopsys are investing about $8m into Canadian start-up Analog Design Automation. The start-up company is applying intelligent systems technology to synthesizing analog and mixed-signal IC designs. AMS Genius, its first major product, uses proprietary topological programming algorithms to achieve analog and mixed-signal synthesis. The algorithms automate the task of optimising circuit topology with transistor sizing and biasing. According to the company this frees up hard-to-find analog circuit experts to focus on development of new cells and enabling junior-level designers to handle a wider range of jobs in product development.
Infineon has announced that it has extended its collaboration with IMEC, a world-leading independent microelectronic R&D centre. The research is in the field of microelectronics technology and design and systems. Infineon has joined several IMEC Industrial Affiliation Programs (IIAPs). The organisations will collaborate on advanced CMOS process steps and modules which will focus on providing basic technologies for manufacture at dimensions of 70 nm or less, and advanced optical lithography. Additional joint activities cover system-on-chip (SoC) design and wireless LAN (WLANs) system applications.
Cypress Semiconductor plans to acquire timing circuit supplier International Microcircuits for $125m in cash. The acquisition will help it keep up with strong growth in timing-chip sales and complement its position in communication clock devices, said Cypress.
Infineon Technologies has announced a deal with Israeli company HyWire to co-develop and sell a line of search and classification engine IC technologies. The companies will develop products based on HyWire's technology. Based in Netanya, Israel, HyWire has developed a search and classification engine capable of policy-based routing, quality of service provision, access control and statistical data collection at hundreds of millions of packets per second.
NEC plans to spin off its optical and microwave semiconductor operations into a new company - as yet unnamed. NEC said that the divested company will be better able to focus R&D and marketing efforts on its specialty chips. The new company will have a capitalisation of $100m.
Mitel has invested in a new photonics company, called Optenia, which is developing technology for dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) communications for fibre-optic networks. The start-up is pursuing technology that resulted from joint research by Mitel and the National Research Council of Canada.
Analog Devices and Tellium are to jointly develop a line of optical chips based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. According to the companies the chips will be used in Tellium's MEMS-based switching fabric for use in its next-generation Aurora Full Spectrum optical switch. Tellium's Aurora Full-Spectrum switch combines all-optical bypass switching with electronic control and processing. The product is scaleable to transmission speeds up to OC-768.
Conexant Systems has selected a corporate name for its new and independent Internet infrastructure company - Mindspeed Technologies. According to Raouf Halim, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Conexant's Internet infrastructure business, who will become Chief Executive of Mindspeed, the name Mindspeed signifies its ability to collaborate with its customers to develop intelligent networking products. Mindspeed will sell a complete portfolio of semiconductor and software solutions, ranging from physical-layer access devices at the edge of the Internet,up through switch fabric and network processor products for the high-speed optical core. Conexant has also delayed filing the IPO for the company following a slowdown in the IC market.
NurLogic Design has announced $5m in funding from Rambus, which will helping the company to finance development of new communications and connectivity chip technologies. NurLogic supplies high-speed chip technologies for broadband CMOS and silicon-germanium (SiGe) ICs.
Industry
Linear Technology is being sued by Texas Instruments over seven patents related to analog circuits and manufacturing process technologies. The suit has come as a surprise to Linear Technology, according to the company, who said that there was no prior discussion of these patents by TI. No Linear Technology products were named as infringing the patents in the suit. Linear Technology said it is the owner of a fundamental patent in voltage regulator technology, which currently, is in suit against several companies, including Unitrode.
The Automotive Multimedia Interface Collaboration (AMI-C) has published the initial release of its specifications for in-vehicle electronic devices. The specs are now available on the AMI-C website. This represents the first attempt by some of the world's biggest automakers to establish a common interface for adding cellphones, personal digital assistants, navigation systems, CD players, video screens etc. to vehicles. Fully-detailed product information will be available in the second release of the spec, which is expected in 18-24 months, according to AMI-C. The first release of the AMI-C spec accommodates IDB-C (intelligent transportation systems data bus-CAN) or either of two up-and-coming high-speed buses - the MOST (media-oriented systems transfer) bus, and the IDB-1394 bus.
Lucent Technologies plans to eliminate 16 000 jobs, reduce operating costs by more than $2bn and intensify its use of contract manufacturers as part of a series of reorganisation measures. Among the changes planned is a reexamination of its production system that will see the company outsource more of its manufacturing activities. Lucent said it intends to significantly expand its previously announced plans to use contract manufacturers, which will result in about 6000 fewer positions by the end of the fiscal year. Lucent expects to complete 10 000 job cuts by early March, with an additional 6000 positions to be eliminated by the end of the year. It will also take a one-time charge of between $1,2bn and $1,6bn in its fiscal 2001 second quarter in connection with the proposed job cuts and other restructuring steps.
Hyundai Electronics and Infineon Technologies have announced a cross-licensing pact that settles a number of patent lawsuits pending in the US and Germany. Terms of the technology pact and long-term business agreement were not disclosed. Three years ago, Infineon sued Hyundai for allegedly violating its DRAM patents and other technology. The companies said they would work together in areas of mutual interest in IC products.
In a move to accelerate the use of high-speed wireless networking systems, Texas Instruments has announced it will offer royalty-free access to patents related to its proposal for a faster implementation of the IEEE 802.11b standard. This WLAN standard pushes the current 11 Mbps in the 2,4 GHz frequency band to 22 Mbps with compatibility to existing WLANs.
A group led by Corning, Honeywell, Intel, Xactix and Xerox have announced the formation of a new US trade association in the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) arena. The new MEMS Industry Group (MEMS-IG) hopes to become the unified voice for the US MEMS chip and systems industry. Announced at the IEEE International MEMS-01 Conference, the group said MEMS-IG will develop roadmaps and standards, and will also provide market information about the development of MEMS-based chip and systems technology in the United States and elsewhere.
Technology
Toshiba America Electronic Components (TAEC), with parent company Toshiba has released the world's first single-channel Interface Driver ICs. Incorporating a single transistor circuit, the IFD ICs are used as an interface between two different voltage levels. Positioned to replace discrete transistors in interface circuits, the chips allow designers to design-in smaller PCBs. They provide the necessary interface between CPUs and peripherals, supplying the high voltage and current outputs for common applications such as driver circuits for switching relays, stepping motors, thermal heads and LEDs. They include a clamping diode and have output ratings of 50 V/0,5 A.
STMicroelectronics has released the latest version of a free development and programming tool that automates the logic design of EasyFLASH Programmable System Devices (PSDs). It says its PSDsoft Express incorporates all of the functionality of the company's fee-based PSDsoft 2000, thus eliminating any charges for software development tools. Designers can use EasyFLASH PSDs to provide external flash memory, SRAM, I/O and programmable logic for more than 180 popular 8-, 16- and 32 bit microcontrollers from 14 suppliers. PSDsoft Express 7.0 software can be downloaded free of charge at www.psdst.com.
Intel has announced what it says is the industry's first PC microprocessor that operates at less than 1 V and draws less than 1 W. The Ultra Low Voltage Mobile Pentium III processor uses Intel's SpeedStep technology to operate at less than 1 V with 300 MHz of performance under battery power. The chip also runs at 500 MHz when the PCs are plugged into power outlets.
Toshiba's two new 32 bit complex-instruction set computer (CISC) microcontrollers have 128 KB of ROM and 6 KB of RAM integrated on chip. The MCUs are the industry's first 32 bit microcontrollers based on a CISC architecture with that level of memory on chip, claims Toshiba. The TMP92CW53F and 92CW10F contains a new 32 bit central processing unit core, called the TLCS-900/H1. Toshiba said the CPU core has been designed for lower power consumption and enhanced processor performance compared to other solutions, including MCUs based on reduced instruction set computing (RISC).
RF Micro Devices has released the first in a series of multiband, direct-quadrature modulator ICs aimed at serving direct-conversion radio architectures in new handsets, base stations and other wireless products. It says the new RF IC features a very low noise floor and includes gain control. The development of the RF2483 eliminates all intermediate frequencies, a direct-modulator approach that significantly reduces the transmit architecture complexity, says RFMD. This allows for multimode, multistandard operation with virtually no RF filters. RF Micro Devices said it plans to incorporate the design approach into all its future chip sets for CDMA, W-CDMA, GSM, TDMA and EDGE wireless standards.
Wolfson Microelectronics, Edinburgh, UK is sampling a new family of digital audio chips. Wolfson's 'Media Delivery Devices', the WM8731, WM8721 and WM8711 devices were developed to add digital audio capabilities to digital camcorders, digital still cameras, DVD players and Internet appliances. The WM8731 is fully compliant with the secure data management interface (SDMI) for copy write protection. It combines a high performance DAC, ADC, headphone amplifier, analog volume control and a unique 12 MHz USB clocking scheme. The WM8731 can generate all the commonly used audio sample rates, including 44,1 kHz, 48 kHz and 96 kHz, directly from its on-chip clock oscillator. For applications that do not require a full CODEC, the WM8711 is a complete replay-only device that includes an analog input path through to a volume control and headphone driver for sources such as external tuners or microphones. The WM8721 is a subset of the WM8711 in a smaller package without the analog input.
Texas Instruments has announced bundled software and DSP solutions for a range of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) systems. TI plans to integrate 672 channels on a chip for T3 capabilities in the second half of 2001. The company also said its new VoIP technology roadmap shows OC-3 - or 2016 channels - on a chip being achieved in the third quarter of 2002.
Integrated Device Technology has extended its bank-switchable dual-port SRAM series to 9 Mb memory devices with 166 MHz performance per port. The new 36 bit dual-port SRAM is aimed at high-bandwidth applications in routers, switches, and wireless base stations used in third-generation cellular phone applications. Unlike conventional dual-port memories, IDT says its architecture does not require extra transistors in SRAM cells to support additional row and bit lines. The bank-switchable memories use a multiplexing architecture that subdivides the array into banks for multiport operation. The SRAMs support simultaneous access and independent clock rates up to 166 MHz.
Cypress Semiconductor is sampling what it claims is the industry's first 9 Mb dual-port RAM. The CY7C08D53 can provide 9 Mb of synchronous, pipelined dual-ported memory capable of buffering large packets of data in two independent clock domains, says Cypress. Configured as a 256K x 36 bit wide device, it provides up to 6 Mbps of bandwidth and allows for easy interface to wide buses. Targeted at the memory buffering requirements of high-performance WANs, storage networks and wireless basestations, the chip runs up to 83 MHz, ahead of the 67 MHz of the popular PCI bus.
STMicroelectronics has formally announced it has shipped the first development platform for its ST100 digital signal processor core architecture to selected customers. The first silicon implementation, called the ST120, is being produced with 0,18 mm process technology, resulting in operating speeds of 200 MHz with supply voltages of 1,2 to 1,8 V. STMicroelectronics intends to make a 0,13 mm version of the DSP, which will operate at 400 MHz.
Toshiba America Electronic Components (TAEC) has introduced four 2,5V, 18 Mb no-turnaround random access memory (NtRAM) parts claimed to have the highest density and lowest voltage of any NtRAM currently available. The NtRAM type of fast SRAM transfers data on every clock cycle, enabling random read or write operations, which yields greater bandwidth. TAEC says it is designed for telecommunications, data communications and networking systems applications where speed and bandwidth are important for system performance.
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