Southern Africa
The NRF and the National Laser Centre (NLC) have signed an agreement whereby the NLC will make funding available for competitive scholarships for full-time master's and doctoral studies in engineering (electronic, mechanical and metallurgical) and physics. The NRF will administer the scholarships. According to Dr Phil Mjwara, Director of the NLC, the organisation was established in April 2000 with the mandate to grow laser expertise in SA industry and academia. For more info about the scholarships contact NRF Support Desk, 012 481 4202, [email protected].
ZA Electronics has moved to: Unit 5, No. 2, Warblers Close, Marconi Estate, Montague Gardens. Tel: 021 552 8235, fax 021 552 7785, e-mail: [email protected]. Mail address remains: Box 12421, N1 City, 7463.
Can you capture the beauty and excitement of science and technology on film? The Mail & Guardian and the Foundation for Education, Science and Technology (FEST) have joined forces to present South Africa's first photographic competition specifically aimed at illustrating and communicating the excitement and impact of science to a broad audience. Open to amateurs and professionals, cash prizes of R45 000 in total are being offered. See www.fest.org.za/sciencelens/index.html
Overseas
Business
STMicroelectronics has reaffirmed its guidance for a 10% sequential increase in second-quarter revenues from $1,36 bn in Q1. ST's gross profit in the first quarter was $452m, a slight decline from $459,5m in Q4 of 2001.
Companies
IBM has announced actions to strengthen its strategic and competitive position. IBM said it will reduce its workforce in certain business units and headquarters by around 1500. It is also selling its disk drive operations to Hitachi to form a new joint company majority-owned by Hitachi. The two companies will negotiate a multiyear alliance to research and develop open technologies for next-generation storage technologies. IBM said it is also realigning its Microelectronics Division to increase operational efficiencies and capitalise on emerging growth opportunities. As part of this realignment, it will increase its use of leading-edge copper technology and close older aluminium technology capacity. The division will increase its focus on custom-chip design and manufacturing, and advanced foundry, while adding new technology design services.
Specialist semiconductor distributor Memec has formed Memec Design, a global division created in response to growing customer demand for design services and intellectual property. Memec Design provides immediate expertise in FPGA, ASIC, software and board level design, along with IP creation and integration. Memec says that the formation of the new group addresses a shift in distribution business models that emphasises value-added services, specifically related to specialised design resources. The company said it will continue to expand Memec Design organically and through acquisition.
Intel has announced plans to acquire network tunable laser technology from New Focus for $50m in cash, thus entering the emerging network tunable laser business for communications applications.
Lumex has announced the formation of its new Sunbrite Group, whose charter is to meet the needs of high-power illumination applications using LED solutions. Replacing conventional incandescent or fluorescent lamps with LEDs can result in power consumption savings, longer operating life, more uniform colour and intensity, and high immunity to vibration, according to the company. The Sunbrite Group will provide products and support to OEMs and users of high-power illumination products such as signage, traffic control, automotive and off-road vehicle lighting and general lighting.
Cypress Semiconductor has announced plans to invest $8,8m in SunPower, a manufacturer of silicon solar cell products, as part of an effort to accelerate its revenue growth beyond current chip products.
Agere Systems has finally completed its spin-off from parent company, Lucent Technologies to become an independent and separate company.
Infineon Technologies has announced that Alcatel has selected its GEMINAX (Global Enhanced Multiport Integrated ADSL Transceiver) chipset as one of the solutions for Alcatel's North American 'Litespan' next-generation network digital loop carrier (NGN DLC) multiservice broadband access platform.
Industry
Worldwide sales of semiconductors totalled $11,07 bn in April, a 3,1% increase from the $10,73 bn level reached in March, driven by the wireless sector, according to the SIA's latest figures. All four geographic regions (Americas; Europe; Japan; Asia Pacific) reported growth for the second month in a row. Stated George Scalise, SIA president: "Semiconductor sales in April are continuing the steady growth exhibited in the first quarter of this year, another sign that the industry is rebounding from 2001. We expect the modest growth we are experiencing in the first half of the year to continue throughout the remainder of 2002. April's growth was led by an increase in sales in the wireless sector."
A revised forecast from the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organisation states that chip markets will continue a slow-but-steady recovery in 2002 with sales increasing by just 2,3% to $142,19 bn this year, followed by a much stronger increase of 21,7% in 2003. WSTS previously forecast a growth of 2,6% for 2002 semiconductor sales. The new forecast also increases the predicted growth of chip sales in 2003 from the previous estimate of 18,5% to 21,7%. Semiconductor markets in Japan, Americas, and Europe will not register growth this year, but in 2003, all regions are expected to show annual growth with memories and microprocessors leading the strong recovery.
GPRS mobile data networks will fail if challenges are not overcome, says a new Gartner report. Despite the promises of general packet radio service (GPRS) offerings in GSM networks, the technology will not meet the revenue expectations of mobile operators. GPRS has promised to deliver higher-speed data in mobile networks - but will prove to be a great technological disappointment until capacity, device and application challenges are overcome, warns the report. The research firm says that operators' GPRS revenue goals worldwide are set to exceed $2,5 bn for 2002, and to total more than $32 bn annually by 2005, but it expects the more-aggressive rollouts to miss expectations by up to 50% in Europe - and by up to 40% in other regions - during this time period. Gartner expects GPRS to only break even in the 2009-to-2011 time frame, long after future wireless services such as 3G are due to be deployed.
Nazomi Communications has filed a patent infringement suit against ARM, alleging that ARM's acceleration technology and products for Java platforms are infringing on its United States patent on Java Acceleration Technology for RISC and CISC Processors. Nazomi is seeking a permanent injunction against ARM precluding further infringement as well as unspecified damages.
150 high-tech UK companies have been named as the fastest growers in the Deloitte and Touche Tohmatsu European Technology Fast 500 ranking. This was followed by France (97 companies), Germany (51 companies) and Ireland (43 companies). Public and private high-tech companies throughout Europe entered Deloitte's European Technology Fast 500, which is Europe's first industry-ranking standard that focuses on the TMT industries. The ranking is based on three-year average revenue growth of each technology company. London-based companies dominated all other regions, comprising one quarter of this year's list.
Linux industry leaders Caldera International, Conectiva, SuSE Linux, and Turbolinux, have announced an organisation called UnitedLinux - an initiative set up to streamline Linux development and certification around a global, uniform distribution of Linux designed for business. Under terms of the agreement, the four companies will collaborate on the development of one common core Linux operating environment, called UnitedLinux software.
The ITU and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) have announced approval of interim procedures for the proposed ENUM protocol, the technology that builds a bridge between the public switched telephone network and the Internet. Under the proposed ENUM protocol, and subject to national authorities and end-user approval, it will be possible for consumers to use a single number to access many types of terminals and services, such as: phone, fax, e-mail, pager, mobile telephones, websites or any other services available through an Internet addressing scheme.
Technology
Samsung Electronics has announced development of a 90-nanometer process technology for system-on-chip designs. The new technology is claimed to feature major technology breakthroughs: an ultra thin 1,6 nm gate insulating film, a 70 nm effective gate length, a ultra shallow junction technology and copper damascene technology using low-k dielectric. The company says speeds are enhanced by 30% in contrast to the current 0,13-micron process technology and memory density in SOC products is improved by integrating a 1,25-square micron SRAM cell, reducing the chip area by about 50%.
Royal Philips Electronics has unveiled a breakthrough polymer-based organic LED (PolyLED) solid-state display module, claimed to be the thinnest and most compact in the industry. Using a thin-film encapsulation process that requires far fewer materials and components than existing manufacturing processes, the thin-film PolyLED technology enables full-colour displays less than 1 mm thick to be built.
Kyocera has developed a low-resistance alumina-based technology for multilayer chip packages that combines the advantages of low-temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) and copper for next-generation mobile systems applications. The new package has the advantage of having high copper conductance, which supports high-frequency ICs, as well as the high mechanical strength and heat dissipation of alumina ceramic. Alumina ceramic packages have traditionally used a tungsten-type of material as the conductor.
Researchers at Motorola Labs are looking into the use of multiple antenna technology to boost the performance of 3G wireless networks. Use of multiple antennas for both the cellular site and handsets could increase data capacity, peak data rate, and voice capacity in wireless networks, according to the company. Motorola has tested a measurement system based on such multiple antenna technologies for channel bandwidths of up to 5 MHz.
Via has introduced its fastest processor to date - the VIA C3 series of 1 GHz chips for use in 'value' PCs and other products. The new VIA C3 processor includes 128 KB of Level 1 cache and 64 KB of Level 2 cache.
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