Overseas
Business
TSMC announced consolidated revenue of 128,06 billion New Taiwan dollars (NT$), net income of NT$41,81 billion, and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of NT$1,61 for the second quarter ended 30 June. Year-over-year, second quarter revenue increased 15,9% while both net income and diluted EPS increased 16,3%. Compared to the first quarter of 2012, second quarter 2012 results represent a 21,4% increase in revenue and a 24,9% increase in both net income and diluted EPS.
Mobile chip vendor ST-Ericsson reported financial results for the second fiscal quarter ending 30 June. Sales in the second quarter increased 19% over the prior quarter, reflecting a significant ramp of volumes of NovaThor platforms shipping to major customers. Adjusted operating loss decreased sequentially by $62 million to $235 million, as the result of volume and margin improvements due to new platforms and the first steps of ongoing actions to reduce operating expenses.
Companies
Analog Devices recently became the first and only semiconductor company to earn Arrow Electronics’ 2011 Platinum Perfect Order Award. AD achieved a 96% ‘Supplier Perfect Order Index,’ according to Arrow’s ordering metrics, the highest ranking of any semiconductor supplier in North America due to its on-time delivery record, fewest customer credits and fewest receiving discrepancies.
IDT has acquired NXP’s high-speed data converter assets as well as Alvand Technologies, a leading analog IP company specialising in data converters. Terms of the deals were not disclosed but IDT expects them to solidify its position as a comprehensive solutions provider for wireless infrastructure.
Silicon Laboratories has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against MaxLinear in the Southern District of California. This lawsuit continues patent litigation against MaxLinear that now involves 20 Silicon Laboratories patents related to RF and mixed-signal design. Silicon Labs intends to prove that MaxLinear’s portfolio of TV, set-top box and cable tuners infringes on a number of Silicon Labs’ key innovations developed and adopted by the market over the last decade. Silicon Labs has asked the court for an injunction stopping the sale of all infringing MaxLinear products.
Intel and Micron Technology announced that their IMFT joint venture’s 20 nm NAND was named Semiconductor of the Year in the 10th Annual Insight Awards hosted by UBM TechInsights.
Industry
The EDA Consortium reported that Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry revenue increased 6,3% for Q1 2012 to $1536,9 million, compared to $1446,4 million in Q1 2011. Sequential EDA revenue for Q1 2012 decreased 9,6% compared to Q4 2011, while the four-quarter moving average, which compares the most recent four quarters to the prior four quarters, increased by 13,4%.
The latest RFID market research from IDTechEx finds that in 2012 the value of the entire RFID market will be $7,46 billion, up from $6,37 billion in 2011. This includes tags, readers and software/services for RFID cards, labels, fobs and all other form factors. It includes passive and active RFID.
Semiconductor revenues worldwide will grow 4,6% in 2012 to $315 billion, according to the mid-year 2012 update of the Semiconductor Applications Forecaster (SAF) from International Data Corporation (IDC). The SAF also forecasts that semiconductor revenues will grow 6,2% to $335 billion in 2013 and grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4,8% from 2011 to 2016, reaching $380 billion by that time.
Technology
Seoul Semiconductor unveiled a new LED product based on patented technology that it claims has improved brightness by five times over the conventional LED based on equivalent die surface area. The new product, called ‘nPola’, has been under development for over 10 years. The company expects further improvements will increase this to more than 10 times existing LEDs.
A company called Altierre has developed fully graphic (dot-matrix) high-resolution e-paper digital display technology targeted at signage applications. The system allows customers to mix and match LCD displays with e-paper and take advantage of wireless updates. The technology is already operating in over 1000 retail stores across US and Europe.
Micron Technology claimed an industry first with high-volume availability of its 45 nm phase change memory (PCM) for mobile devices, featuring 1 Gb PCM plus 512 Mb LPDDR2 in a multichip package. According to Micron, its PCM technology provides enhanced boot time, simplifies software development and boosts performance with overwrite capability, in addition to offering very low power consumption and extremely high reliability.
An innovative embedded algorithm in a new audio system from NXP Semiconductors is said to boost the output power of micro speakers by over five times, vastly improving the sound quality of mobile devices. By driving over 2,6 W RMS into micro speakers that have previously been limited to 0,5 W, the TFA9887 can give devices louder sound, deeper bass and higher sound quality without risking speaker damage.
Microsemi announced that an independent organisation providing technical and scientific research, development and advisory services to national security space programs has completed reliability testing of Microsemi’s commercial-grade Axcelerator FPGAs. Impressively, the tests lasted more than four years with an accumulated total of more than 26 million device-hours of testing without a single antifuse failure.
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