South Africa
Cirtech Electronics attended the Gitex 2012 technology week in Dubai towards the end of last year as part of the Department of Trade and Industry group, and exhibited on the South Africa stand. The company was represented by national sales manager, Leon Poulton, and factory manager, Daniel Soobramoney.
Locosys, a manufacturer of GNSS (global navigation satellite systems) technology, has appointed Electrocomp as its distributor for the South African market.
Overseas
Business
In line with its previously stated strategic plans, Texas Instruments announced it will reduce costs and focus investments in its wireless business on embedded markets with greater potential for sustainable growth. Cost reductions include the elimination of about 1700 jobs worldwide. As a result of these actions, the company expects annualised savings of about $450 million by the end of 2013. Total charges will be about $325 million, most of which will be accounted for in the current quarter.
Analog Devices announced financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year 2012. For the quarter, revenue totalled $695 million, more than the previous quarter’s $683 million but down on last year’s fourth quarter at $716 million. Net income for the year was $651 million ($2,13 diluted earnings per share) based on revenue of $2,7 billion, compared to net income of $867 million ($2,81 diluted earnings per share) on revenue of $3 billion in 2011.
Osram will be expanding its LED manufacturing capacity with planned investments in the ‘low three-digit million Euro’ range in its LED assembly plant in China. The company also announced, however, that it will be cutting some 4700 jobs by 2014, as part of a cost-saving strategy.
Micron Technology announced results of operations for its first quarter of fiscal 2013, which ended 29 November 2012. For the first quarter, the company had a net loss attributable to Micron shareholders of $275 million, or $0,27 per diluted share, on net sales of $1,8 billion. These results compare to a net loss of $243 million, or $0,24 per diluted share, on net sales of $2,0 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, and a net loss of $187 million, or $0,19 per diluted share, on net sales of $2,1 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2012.
Companies
EXFO has been honoured with two test industry awards. The first was a rating of four diamonds by Broadband Technology Report for the intelligent Optical Link Mapper (iOLM) product while the second award was from Frost & Sullivan for having the highest market share (36,7%) in the portable fibre-optic test equipment sector.
RF Micro Devices hopes to accelerate growth in the entry-level smartphone segment thanks to its recent acquisition of Amalfi Semiconductor, a fabless semiconductor company specialising in RF and mixed-signal ICs for this market. Under the terms of the agreement, RFMD will acquire Amalfi with cash on hand for total consideration of around $47,5 million.
ams has completed a transaction to acquire the IDS group, a global design leader for low-power RFID IC solutions and intellectual property for HF and UHF applications. Financial details are being kept under wraps.
After much speculation as to its future, troubled chip maker Renesas Electronics will reportedly be bought by the state-owned Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), which will pay close to $2,5 billion dollars for two thirds of the company. This follows a bid by US private equity firm KKR to obtain a controlling interest in Renesas for $1,3 billion.
MIPS Technologies and Imagination have agreed to an amendment of their merger scheme, to provide for a purchase price of $100 million. This follows the submission of a definitive proposal from CEVA for $90 million, which was determined by the MIPS board of directors to be a ‘superior proposal’ to the original merger agreement with Imagination.
National Instruments has acquired Signalion, adding strong wireless communications talent and technologies to the NI platform, which NI believes are critical to its goal of long term growth in the communications test industry. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Diodes has bought BCD Semiconductor Manufacturer, a maker of analog and mixed-signal ICs in China, in an all-cash transaction valued at $151 million.
Ericsson announced that it will take a non-cash charge of approximately $1,2 billion in its fourth 2012 fiscal quarter, related to its 50% stake in ailing mobile chip joint venture ST-Ericsson. The charge includes write down of assets to reflect the current best estimate of Ericsson’s share of the fair market value of the joint venture, as well as additional charges related to the available strategic options for the future of the ST-Ericsson assets. Meanwhile STMicroelectronics has announced that it plans to exit the joint venture by the end of the third quarter of 2013.
Industry
The global semiconductor market posted its best sales month of 2012 in November (December figures not yet being available at the time of this going to print). According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $25,73 billion in November, a 2% increase over the prior month. Sales from November 2012 also topped the November 2011 total of $25,22 billion by 2%, marking the global industry’s first year-over-year gain of 2012.
Atmel has become the newest member of the G3-PLC Alliance, an international organisation whose goal is to promote the G3-PLC communications standard that ensures interoperability of new smart grid ecosystems.
IMS Research forecasts the market for cellular machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity services to rise from approximately 107 million connections globally in 2011 to about 326 million connections by 2016. Mobile operators are intently focused on developing and expanding their activities in the cellular M2M market as a key growth opportunity in the face of increasing saturation and maturity of the core mobile voice/data services market.
Texas Instruments has joined the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP). Incepted in April of last year, A4WP is a group of electronics companies, including Samsung, Qualcomm and others, focused on advancing the field of wireless power by delivering a specification that permits spatial freedom. The group officially released its A4WP specification, which is based on loosely coupled magnetic resonance technology, to simultaneously charge smartphones and other portable electronics with different power requirements.
According to the EDA Consortium, global third quarter 2012 EDA revenues increased 4,9% compared to the same period in 2011 to reach $1619,9 million. The EMEA region’s revenues grew 3,8%.
Technology
Sharp has achieved the world’s highest solar cell conversion efficiency of 37,7% using a triple-junction compound solar cell in which three photo-absorption layers are stacked together. To achieve this, the company developed a new cell which can efficiently absorb light from different wavelengths in sunlight and convert it into electricity. Sharp also increased the active area for converting light into electricity through optimal processing of the cell edges.
Osram has established a new R&D record with a prototype infrared thin-film chip boasting 72% efficiency. At 930 mW from an operating current of 1 A, its light output under laboratory conditions is 25% higher than that of the chips currently available on the market. With a wavelength of 850 nm the chip has been designed in particular for infrared illumination applications.
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