Overseas
Business
• Chip manufacturing giant, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), announced the cessation of its solar panel production operations with immediate effect. TSMC Solar, which produced thin film solar panels using CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) technology, failed to turn a sustainable profit over the six years of its existence.
• Revenue for Gemalto’s first semester of 2015 was 1,5 billion Euros, an increase of 20% (assuming constant exchange rates). Growth in its payment (22%), machine-to-machine (23%) and government programmes (17%) business units exceeded lower SIM products and related services revenue. Earnings per share (EPS) of 1,21 Euros represented a 9% increase over the first half of 2014.
Companies
• M/A-Com Technology Solutions has completed the divestiture of its automotive business to Autoliv ASP Inc. for approximately $100 million in cash, plus the opportunity to receive up to an additional $30 million in cash based on the achievement of certain earn-out targets through 2019. M/A-Com also provided guidance for its fiscal fourth quarter ending 2 October 2015, during which it expects revenue to be in the range of $110 to $114 million, or an increase of 1,0% to 4,5%, compared to the fiscal third quarter of 2015 excluding automotive.
• Cree has renamed its power and RF division to Wolfspeed, which is being spun out as a separate company. The new company inherits a fully commercialised, broad portfolio of field-tested silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) power and wireless technologies and products.
• MediaTek intends to launch a tender offer for Richtek, a fabless vendor of analog and power management ICs. MediaTek plans to acquire between 35% and 51% of Richtek’s outstanding shares for NT$195 per share, for a total transaction value between US$310 million and US$450 million. Upon completion of the tender offer, MediaTek plans to further acquire 100% of Richtek’s outstanding shares and it is now expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2016, subject to relevant regulatory approvals.
• Keysight Technologies has purchased Electroservices Enterprises, a UK company specialising in test equipment service and solutions with a number of defence, telecom and industrial customers.
Industry
• The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced worldwide sales of semiconductors were $27,9 billion for the month of July 2015, a decrease of 0,9% from July 2014 and 0,4% lower than the June 2015 total. Regionally, year-to-year sales increased in China (5,6%), Asia Pacific/All Other (1,0%), and the Americas (0,8%), but decreased in Europe (-12,5%) and Japan (-13,3%), in part due to currency devaluation.
• Asia-Pacific’s grip as the dominant market for IC sales is forecast to strengthen in 2015 with the region expected to account for 58,9% of the $295,0 billion IC market this year, based on analysis published by IC Insights. The Asia-Pacific region is particularly dominant with regard to IC market share in the computer and communications categories, and to a lesser extent in the consumer and industrial categories. Europe is forecast to account for the largest share of the automotive IC market in 2015, but IC Insights expects the Asia-Pacific region will achieve top share of that segment in 2016 as China continues to account for a large and growing portion of new car shipments. That will leave only the government/military end use segment where Asia-Pacific does not have top IC market share – a condition that is forecast to hold through 2018.
• With a recent sharp rise in the number of patent applications for flexible display technologies, the market for various types of flexible displays is expected to broaden. According to IHS, 312 patents for flexible displays were filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 2014; user-interface technology was the most active sector for patent applications. Flexible displays accounted for 62% of US display patent applications last year. Samsung Electronics filed half of all new flexible display patents in the USA, followed by LG Electronics at 17%.
• The United States’ Department of Defence is throwing its weight, and its money, behind the development of flexible hybrid electronics. It has awarded $75 million in federal funding over a five-year period to the FlexTech Alliance, a consortium of technology and manufacturing companies counting the likes of Apple and Boeing amongst its more than 160 members comprising companies, laboratories and non-profits, universities, and state and regional organisations. This adds to more than $96 million in cost sharing pledged by non-federal sources for the FlexTech Alliance’s efforts.
Technology
• Qorvo, the company born from the merger of RF Micro Devices and TriQuint, announced it has successfully scaled its proprietary QGaN25 gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon carbide (SiC) process to produce monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) on six-inch wafers. This paves the way for converting all of the company’s GaN on SiC production processes to 6-inch wafers, with gate lengths ranging from 0,15 m to 0,50 m, covering the full range of microwave to millimetre-wave applications. Full rate production is anticipated in 2016.
• Intel has given a name to the transistor-less 3D XPoint non-volatile memory technology it has been developing with Micron Technology. Dubbed ‘Optane’, the memory will find its way into solid-state drives during 2016, and will power a new line of Intel DIMMs designed for Intel’s next-generation data centre platforms. The companies have boasted that their 3D memory technology could be up to 1000 times faster than NAND Flash, have as much as 1000 times greater endurance, and 10 times the density of conventional memory.
• A Florida State University engineering professor has developed a highly efficient and low-cost light emitting diode that could help spur more widespread adoption of the technology. Using a combination of organic and inorganic materials, Zhibin Yu developed a material which dissolves and can be applied like paint, shines a blue, green or red light and can be used to make a light bulb. Significantly, it requires only one layer of material (as opposed to the four or five normally needed), making its manufacture simpler and cheaper.
• Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have broken the temperature record for a superconductive material. They observed that hydrogen sulphide becomes superconductive at -70°C when placed under a pressure of 1.5 million bar (half of the pressure of the earth’s core). This compares to special copper ceramics (cuprates) with a record of -109°C at high pressure.
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