Southern Africa
Siemens Information and Communication Group has been awarded a $221m turnkey supply contract for South Africa's third cellular operator, Cell C. The base contract for the main network and key options is valued at $206m over 18 months. This will include the switching, basestations, GPRS, prepaid platforms, and VAS (Value Added Services) equipment, according to the company. In addition, Siemens has secured a support contract for all network elements, which also covers the installation and maintenance of all of Cell C's business communication equipment. Further options and operational support bring the contract value to $221m. Pete da Silva, Chief Operating Officer, says the award of the third cellular licence will deliver a range of significant benefits for South Africans, and is in line with the broader aims of improving access to communication services and increasing empowerment. Up to 2000 new jobs will be created, directly and indirectly, by Siemens as a result of this project. Siemens is committed to an aggressive programme of BEE subcontracting, with a significant percentage of materials for the project being procured locally, he said.
Grintek and Swedish group Saab have teamed up to compete in world markets in the high-tech communications and data network defence sectors. The new partnership, which will immediately result in combined turnover growing from $25m to $40m, is the direct result of relationships formed around South Africa's strategic defence procurement package. The new Saab-Grintek partnership will secure 250 highly skilled jobs in the short-term, according to Grintek. As the company enters new markets with the help of the Saab worldwide network, it expects this number to grow.
The Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) has announced that a R500m budget has been set aside to equip almost 1,5 million pupils in the province with Internet and e-mail facilities. GautengOnline.com was officially launched on 14 June. The initiative hopes to revolutionise education in the province by creating an interactive networked public schooling system, capable of harnessing the power of information and communication technology. Mark Forbes, Xylo Brand Manager at Siltek Local Brands, said that Xylo has been involved with GautengOnline since its inception in 2000. He said Xylo supplied 800 PIII Xylo computers in 2000, and a further 600 PIII and P4 computers this year. By 2005 GautengOnline.com expects to have equipped 2400 schools in the province with computers and Internet connectivity, he said.
Siltek Telecoms has been appointed as the exclusive distributor in South Africa for the Samsung wireless networking equipment. Michael Aitken, MD of Siltek Telecoms, said that the agreement enables it to add wireless technology to the total business offering. By partnering with Samsung, it is also able to add a well-known and highly reliable brand into its broad-based telecommunications offering.
Grintek Telecom has acquired a stake in Electrodynamics, a developer of value added solutions for Nortel Networks contact centres. According to Erwin Schumann, MD of Grintek Telecom, Grintek's aim is to acquire companies capable of delivering solutions that complement its own solutions and which can be offered to customers as strategic value adds. He said that the emphasis is on each technology's ability to integrate fully with the solutions designed for customers. Electrodynamics, which produces the Frontline Software range, develops a number of products that integrate with Nortel Networks' contact centre technology and which are designed to enhance its performance and functionality.
Duxbury Networking has released the first locally-developed dial-up modem to meet the emerging V.92 standard, recently announced by the ITU. The Duxbury V.92 modem will deliver an increase in upload speeds to 48 Kbps while retaining the 56K download speed. The V.92 standard provides for faster connect times (10-15 s) and it features a 'modem on hold' facility that allows the modem to work in conjunction with Telkom's call-waiting facility. Barry Neunborn, Duxbury's technical director, claims the new analog modem offers a 30% increase in the maximum upload speed attainable by current generation modems and is ideally suited to overcoming the constraints of the generally poor quality of the local telephone lines, particularly in rural areas. Neunborn adds that Duxbury has also incorporated the new V.44 data compression standard in the V.92 modems in a move that will improve performance by a further 60 to 200% for certain types of data.
Marconi Communications South Africa has been awarded a two-year telecoms supply contract from Transtel. See "Marconi wins two-year telecoms supply contract from Transtel".
Transition Networks has appointed ATC as its distribution and logistical centre for Africa. See "Transition Neworks appoints ATC as distribution and logistic centre for Africa".
Components & System Design has been appointed as a distributor for Micro Linear, a provider of highly integrated silicon solutions for wired Ethernet and broadband wireless networks. Micro Linear is also a high volume supplier of cost-effective RF transceiver chipsets.
Truly International of Hong Kong has appointed Electrocomp as sole local distributor. See "Electrocomp appointed as Truly agent".
San People has moved to: East Wing 106, 1st Floor, The Vineyard Centre, Cnr Adam Tas and Devon Valley Roads, Stellenbosch 7600. Postal: PO Box 7155, Stellenbosch, 7599. Tel: (021) 882 8811, fax: (021) 882 8825.
Overseas
Business
General Semiconductor has downgraded its forecast for second-quarter revenues, warning of a 15-17% sequential drop from $102m in the first quarter due to a continued weakness in demand from most of its end markets. According to Ronald A. Ostertag, Chairman and CEO, the semiconductor business is cyclical and like others, its revenues have been affected by the current market environment. He believes the slowdown to be temporary though, and is confident that the company's power management strategy will provide strong long-term growth for General Semiconductor. New product sales continue to grow, and the company remains committed to maintaining its increased level of investment in new product development, currently up 65 to 75% over 2000, he said.
Royal Philips Electronics, Netherlands, has announced that revenues from its Semiconductors division in the second quarter of this year are expected to decrease by 20-25% compared with the first quarter as a result of continuing weakness in its key markets. Fab utilisation will come down to 40-45% at the end of the second quarter. As a result of lower revenues, reducing inventories and increasing price erosion in a mostly fixed-cost business, it will report an operating loss in the second quarter of approximately EUR175m.
International Rectifier has announced that it expects revenues in the current fiscal quarter to sequentially drop 30-35% to a range of $179-$193m from $276m in the prior quarter. The company said it expected the datacom and telecom segment of its business to be down about 50% from the March quarter, but that business conditions in these markets deteriorated even further during the quarter.
National Semiconductor reported sales of $401,2m in the fourth fiscal quarter, ended 27 May, a 32,6% drop over the like period a year ago. National also reported a loss of $44,4m for the year, compared to a profit of $134,2m last year.
Companies
Danaher has announced that it has acquired Microtest for $74m in stock. Under the terms of the agreement, Microtest's network test and measurement operations will be combined with Danaher's Fluke Networks subsidiary. Danaher is a manufacturer of process/environmental control systems, tools, and components.
Sensory, a leader in dedicated speech recognition chips and embedded speech software, has signed an agreement for the rights to continue production of Texas Instruments' MSP50C6xx speech synthesis IC product line. Under the terms of the agreement Sensory will begin supporting new customers immediately and TI will continue to accept orders for the MSP50C6xx products through the end of 2001. At that point, TI will transition the product line, tools and all operational activities to Sensory.
Philips Semiconductors and Tality, a subsidiary of Cadence Design Systems, have announced a strategic partnership to provide customers with complete embedded Bluetooth system solutions to help them significantly reduce time to market for Bluetooth products, and increase the probability of first-time interoperability. The solutions consist of a family of Tality-developed Bluetooth reference modules that utilise Philips' baseband and RF ICs, together with Tality's protocol stack and application profiles. The modules will also be available for licence by customers who wish to undertake system design themselves.
Philips Semiconductors has joined forces with Allgon Mobile Communications, a supplier of antennas for mobile phones, to develop Bluetooth plug and play modules with integrated antennas. The companies hope to develop a cost-effective means of integrating antenna functions into a Bluetooth device. Previously the antenna required a separate component, which demanded careful design-in. By integrating this function into one module, the advantages of cost, size and time to market for plug and play modules will be maximised, according to the companies.
IBM and National Semiconductor have developed new platform and technology for home gateways that connect household appliances, lights, security systems, air conditioners, entertainment units, and other consumer products to the Internet for remote access and management. The companies said that the home gateway market, fueled by demand for broadband Internet access throughout the home, is predicted to rise from $267m in 2000 to $7,1 bn in 2006 worldwide. The jointly-developed technology combines National's Internet appliance development platform - including the company's Geode microprocessor - and IBM's WebSphere embedded software, offering a flexible and modular hardware and software solution that can target multiple product offerings in a single development environment. The joint platform will be generally available in August.
Philips Semiconductors and Frontier Design have created a new company called Adelante Technologies that will combine Philips' REAL DSP architecture with Frontier's design capabilities to provide another alternative for the 3G wireless handset market.
German wireless communications platform provider, Systemonic and Sony Venture Capital Europe, the venture capital arm of Sony Europe, have entered a strategic partnership. Under the agreement, Sony and Systemonic will investigate the use of Systemonic technology to enable wireless communications capabilities in a wide variety of Sony product types. Enabling broadband wireless communication at 5 GHz, Systemonic's platform is the first to enable flexible multistandard, multimode solutions for the global marketplace. Initial solutions will support the European HiperLAN 2 and US IEEE802.11a, among other regional standards. Systemonic's platform allows implementation of core wireless functionality to be programmed into embedded firmware as opposed to being hardwired into silicon, offering Sony flexibility in standards as well as the ability to add features.
Infineon Technologies and Canon have jointly launched a research project for the development of photolithography systems utilising 157 nm exposure technology via F2 (fluorine) laser illumination. The joint effort is expected to accelerate the development of 157 nm lithography systems, and the subsequent introduction of these systems in the manufacturing process of semiconductor devices. Infineon plans to introduce 157 nm lithography for the production of memory and logic products at its advanced production sites.
Integrated Packaging Assembly Corp. (IPAC), the US IC-packing and assembly house, has changed its name to OSE USA. Taiwanese company Orient Semiconductor Electronics (OSE), took a controlling interest in IPAC in 1999.
A consortium of 37 companies have announced the formation of a new, nonprofit organisation called the Metro Ethernet Forum, that hopes to propel Ethernet technology in optical networks. The consortium hopes to accelerate the use of Ten Gigabit Ethernet and related technologies in the wide-area networks.
LSI Logic has announced the sale of its 8" wafer fab in Colorado to silicon foundry provider X-Fab Semiconductor Foundries of Germany for approximately $120m.
Clearwater Networks, along with Altera, Hynix and Marvell, is developing a hardware reference design for multigigabit advanced network services. According to the company, key components include Clearwater Network's CNP810SP network services processor, Altera's System-On-A-Programmable Chip (SOPC) products, Marvell's Alaska Gigabit Ethernet PHY transceiver and GalNet switching and routing products, and Hynix's high-performance DDR SDRAM. The reference board is designed to allow customers to rapidly develop and deploy advanced networking services such as URL-based web switching, SSL acceleration, network address translation (NAT), IPv6 gateways, and content-aware traffic shaping, according to the companies.
Wireless-chip maker Stanford Microdevices has agreed to drop the use of 'Stanford' in its corporate name, as part of an out-of-court settlement reached with Stanford University.
Industry
Worldwide IC sales will fall 21% in 2001, but may drop 28% in 'worst case,' according to a new forecast from IC Insights. The revised forecast states that in total, worldwide IC business will drop from $177 bn in 2000, to $139,2 bn in 2001. IC Insights' 'best case' scenario for the IC market in 2001 is a 15% decline from 2000, and 'worst case' is a 28% drop. This forecast of -21% makes the decline the largest on record, surpassing 1985's 20% slide. According to IC Insights one 'red flag' that something is very different about the current IC industry situation is the fact that during a 26-year span from 1970 through 1995 there were only two negative growth years in the IC market (1975 and 1985). However, in only a 6-year period, from 1996 through 2001, the IC market will register 3 negative growth years (1996, 1998, and 2001). Also, from 1995 through 2001, the semiconductor industry will have spent about $250 bn dollars in capital expenditures to receive only about $50 bn in additional semiconductor sales during this same time period, according to the analyst group.
New forecast data released by telecom market research firm RHK shows the worldwide market for optical components used in terrestrial dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) and optical networking applications will decline 11% in 2001 from spending levels in 2000. It claims the decline is a result of excess inventory, a slowdown in network build-outs, and reduced spending by telecommunications carriers worldwide. Long term, RHK expects a return to growth in 2002, but at a more conservative rate than experienced in past years. It says this growth will be driven by continuing deployment of new systems, an increase in the number of functions performed optically rather than electrically, and the introduction of higher-performance, higher-priced next-generation components.
Secretary-General of the ITU, Yoshio Utsumi, has announced the arrangements and framework for the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS). The first phase of the World Summit will take place in Geneva, in December 2003. It will address the broad range of themes concerning the Information Society and adopt a Declaration of Principles and Action Plan, addressing the whole range of issues related to the Information Society. The second phase of the World Summit will take place in Tunisia, in 2005. Development themes will be a key focus in this meeting and it will assess progress made and adopt further action plans.
At the recent Bluetooth Congress executives within the Bluetooth Special Interest Group warned that developers shipping products based on version 1.1 of the core Bluetooth standard need to beware the problems of 'feature creep'. Feature creep occurs when additional features are continually added to a product specification during development, which delay a product's completion and market introduction.
Gartner Dataquest has named Infineon Technologies the leader in worldwide sales revenue for silicon chips used in chip card products, marking this the third consecutive year that the company has ranked Infineon as the number one provider of silicon to this fast growing market. The market research firm states that Infineon held a 47% share of the total 1,9 billion chip card IC market, representing 921million units shipped.
Motorola announced at the 2001 Bluetooth Congress new hardware and software offerings and an aggressive roadmap for future Bluetooth products. An integrated Bluetooth module and updated software suite shown at the Congress provide OEMs a specification 1.1 qualified system they can easily embed in their designs. Motorola is also adding a Bluetooth mini-PCI form factor to the portfolio, allowing PC manufacturers to offer Bluetooth functionality as a pre-installed option. Finally, Motorola presented early details on its future products and described how new chips can help deliver ongoing performance enhancements and low-cost Bluetooth systems.
The GSM Association has announced the creation of the Mobile Services Initiative (M-Services), a global industry move to enhance benefits to GSM users by delivering a globally available set of services through the mobile Internet. The Association has compiled a set of prioritised, compelling service guidelines - on a freely available basis - that can be offered in the future by any manufacturer of GPRS handsets.
DSP Group has been named the worldwide leader with the largest market share of DSP Core Intellectual Property (IP), in a recent Gartner Dataquest market statistics report. According to the Worldwide Semiconductor Intellectual Property (SIP) Share Rankings, DSP Group ranked 1st in both 1999 and 2000 in DSP Core IP revenues worldwide, with a market share of 55% of the licensed DSP core market.
For the third consecutive year, Kemet has received the 'Supplier Excellence Award - PEMCO Products' from Arrow Electronics. Presented at the recent EDS Show in Las Vegas, the Supplier Excellence Award is Arrow's highest award presented yearly to only one supplier of passive, electromechanical, or connector (PEMCO) products. The criterion for the award is overall quality, on-time delivery, customer service, and overall ease of doing business.
Technology
Intel claims to have built the world's fastest silicon transistors. The transistors feature structures just 20 nanometers in size and, according to the researchers, are capable of 0,75-picosecond switching speeds - or 1,5 trillion switches per second. Speaking in Kyoto, Japan at the 2001 Silicon Nanoelectronics Workshop, Intel's Dr Gerald Marcyk said that the research demonstrates that Intel is already well into the nanotechnology realm using silicon. He said that Intel's transistor research demonstrates that it is able to extend Moore's Law scaling for at least another three generations beyond current technologies. Intel believes this technology will allow microprocessors containing a billion transistors, running at speeds approaching 20 GHz and operating at less than one volt in approximately 2007.
Transitive Technologies has unveiled the Dynamite, the first commercially available virtual CPU software platform which it claims allows binary code written for one type of CPU to run on a different target CPU at near native speed. Revealed at the recent Embedded Processor Forum, California, the company says that manufacturers using this software technology can now upgrade to next-generation CPUs without alienating the huge libraries of software written for previous generation hardware, or use the same application software code across different CPU platforms. Transitive also says that because of optimising routines within its software, the translated code usually runs faster and more efficiently than the original native code.
Texas Instruments claims it is delivering the world's smallest logic devices. TI's NanoStar package reduces size by 70% from SC-70 packages. It says the first devices offered in NanoStar packaging will be the most popular logic functions for space-constrained systems and will be first introduced in a 5-pin, Single-Gate, Low-Voltage CMOS (LVC) technology. LVC Dual Gate devices will follow in an 8-pin version.
Zarlink Semiconductor, formerly Mitel Semiconductor, has announced a new RF chipset for dual-mode cellular handsets based on the TDMA/AMPS standards. The two-chip solution, dubbed the MGCM02 and MGCT04, consists of a complete IF receiver, baseband interface and transmitter. The chip comes in a 5 x 5 mm MLF package.
Analog Devices has announced its new Blackfin series of 16 bit digital signal processors, the first DSPs to integrate the Micro Signal Architecture jointly developed with Intel. The company also announced it was also making available a new power management IC that uses Dynamic Power Management technology allowing independent adjustments of both voltage and frequency to minimise the energy consumed by each processing task. The ADSP-21535 Blackfin processor operates at 300 MHz, delivering up to 600 MMACs and power consumption as low as 42 mW at 0,9 V, according to ADI.
STMicroelectronics has introduced what it claims is the world's most advanced HDTV decoder IC. The new STi7020 contains multiple stream MPEG HD/SD video decoding, audio decoding, a powerful 2D/3D graphics subsystem and numerous ancillary functions such as NTSC/PAL video encoder and High Definition (HD) and Standard Definition (SD) Video DACS. The company said its STi7020 chip supports multiple HDTV video and audio standards, including ATSC in the US and ARIB/BS4 in Japan. The IC's multistream decoding MPEG video core supports two HD video streams or up to five SD video streams, with many other combinations possible. Two separate format conversion and display pipelines are included in the STi7020 to support decoding of dual HD MPEG streams and generate two independent video outputs.
General Semiconductor has rolled out a new surface-mount package for power devices that has an 'ultra-small' footprint and a height of less than 1 mm. According to the company, the SMF package is aimed at a range of portable product applications. The SMF matches the outline of JEDEC DO-219 standard packages. The new surface-mount package uses a patented, fully automated folded-frame technology, which results in higher reliability, according to the company.
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