Overseas
Business
ST-Ericsson, the loss-making wireless joint venture between STMicroelectronics and Ericsson, is closing its doors. Pending negotiations with workers’ unions, Ericsson will take on around 1800 ST-Ericsson employees while ST will assume roughly 900; 1600 employees are expected to be made redundant. The joint venture’s thin modem business will henceforth be run by Ericsson as a separate business entity.
u-blox announced its financial results for 2012. Consolidated revenue was CHF 173,1 million in 2012, a growth of 38,8% as compared to 2011. EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) also increased, from CHF 29,1 million in 2011 to CHF 35,3 million in 2012.
For its second quarter of fiscal 2013, Micron Technology experienced a net loss of $286 million, or $0,28 per diluted share, on net sales of $2,1 billion. These results compare to a net loss of $275 million, or $0,27 per diluted share, on net sales of $1,8 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2013, and a net loss of $282 million, or $0,29 per diluted share, on net sales of $2,0 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2012.
Companies
Jerry Fishman, reigning CEO of Analog Devices and the man who held that position for more than 16 years, passed away on the 28th of March of an apparent heart attack. Fishman joined Analog Devices in 1971 in product marketing, and his responsibilities and contributions expanded quickly as he rose through the ranks of the company, eventually to become president and CEO. His contributions to Analog Devices and the industry were recognised throughout his career.
Atmel has completed its acquisition of IDT’s smart metering IC product lines and technologies for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition includes IDT’s metrology analog front end (AFE) and SoC devices for single- and poly-phase energy meters.
Industry
The Semiconductor Industry Association announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $23,25 billion for the month of February 2013, an increase of 1,4% from February 2012 when sales were $22,93 billion. Global sales from February 2013 were 3,8% lower than the January 2013 total of $24,17 billion, reflecting seasonal trends, but year-to-date sales through February 2013 were 2% higher than at the same point last year.
The total market for open short-range wireless (SRW) technology based ICs, ie, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, NFC and GPS, is expected to reach almost 5 billion units in 2013 and grow to nearly 8 billion by 2018, says ABI Research. Consumer devices such as mobile phones, laptops, media tablets, games consoles, etc. have been the major driver of SRW technology growth but as many of these devices start to peak, it is newer applications such as automotive, home automation, smart energy, retail and many more that will be the major growth drivers over the next 10 years.
According to a new report from IC Insights, Samsung Electronics catapulted to the top of the optoelectronics supplier ranking in 2012 from 12th place in 2011 after it gained full ownership of Samsung LED, a 50-50 joint venture in light-emitting diodes that was created in 2009 between Samsung Electronics and affiliate Samsung Electro-Mechanics. In April 2012, the venture was absorbed into Samsung Electronics to strengthen and expand the use of high-brightness LEDs in displays, LCD TVs and new solid-state lighting products. This transfer increased Samsung’s optoelectronics sales by 223% to $2,5 billion in 2012 compared to $780 million in 2011.
Technology
Cypress Semiconductor unveiled the PSoC 4 programmable system-on-chip architecture, which combines the company’s analog and digital fabric and CapSense capacitive touch technology with ARM’s power-efficient Cortex-M0 core. The scalable architecture delivers access to dozens of free PSoC Components – ‘virtual chips’ represented by icons in Cypress’s PSoC Creator integrated design environment. In addition to capacitive sensing, PSoC 4 targets field-oriented control (FOC) motor control, temperature sensing, security access, portable medical and many other applications.
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