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12 October 2011 News

South Africa

ChipOnBoard has moved premises to Unit 9, Kinsman Industrial Park, 10 Kinsman Road, New Germany, Pinetown. The company’s telephone number is +27 (0)31 811 4626.

Overseas

Business

For the first half of its current financial year, the Premier Farnell group increased sales by 4,8% to reach a total of £497,9 million. First half operating profit grew 7,4% to 73,8 million and adjusted earnings per share were 9,3 pence.

Companies

Microchip delivered its 10 billionth PIC microcontroller recently, to Samsung Electronics. What is even more impressive is that it took the company only 10 months to go from the 9 billion mark to this new milestone.

u-blox announced the acquisition of Fusion Wireless, a provider of CDMA wireless modules for consumer and M2M applications in North America. The acquisition price was $0,9 million, fully paid for in cash, plus existing debt of $2,1 million, plus earn-out.

Texas Instruments’ $6,5 billion acquisition of National Semiconductor is officially complete. National and its 5000 employees become part of TI’s analog business, which will swell to a combined portfolio of nearly 45 000 products. TI will include National’s contribution to financial performance in the company’s third quarter earnings announcement on 24 October. With this acquisition, TI’s analog semiconductor business now represents more than 50% of the company’s revenue.

After rebuffing several takeover bids from Microsemi, Zarlink Semiconductor has finally acquiesced to an offer 19% higher than the previous. Microsemi will pay $3,86 for each share of Zarlink, for a total transaction value of approximately $525 million, net of Zarlink’s cash which is currently $107 million.

Industry

Semiconductor days of inventory (DOI) are forecast to plateau in the third quarter of 2011 at ‘worrisome’ levels given current conditions and the likelihood that consumer and business spending will be weaker than expected, according to Gartner. Gartner expects the semiconductor industry to begin an inventory correction in late 2011, with production and sell-through expected to return roughly to balance by the second quarter of 2012.

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