Africa
Poynting has formally concluded its acquisition of African Union Communications (Aucom). This is Poynting’s first major deal since listing on the JSE, and is expected to more than double the company’s turnover. The acquisition cost R49,5 million by way of the issue of 66 million Poynting shares, and will enable Poynting to diversify its offering by ramping up the distribution of its digital TV products via third-party service providers into the previously untapped African consumer market.
Helukabel has opened a new sales branch in Queensburgh, Durban, to support what it says is booming demand for all types of cable supplied by the company in the KwaZulu-Natal and East Coast regions of South Africa. The new branch is staffed by experienced campaigners with an intimate knowledge of the cabling industry in KZN and surrounds. Paul Bester has assumed the role of regional branch manager, assisted by Irwin Moodley in sales.
Solar Capital, a South African solar energy producer, has walked away with the prestigious ‘Best Renewable Energy Company in Africa’ award at the recently held New Economy Sustainable Energy Awards 2013. Other winners at the awards included Eskom as the ‘Best Energy Group’ in Africa.
Legrand recently became a member of the South African SAFEhouse Association, which was established by industry in 2012 with the aim of addressing the prevalence of sub-standard electrical products in South Africa, that also often do not conform to local regulations. In the event of a safety defect, the association’s code of conduct compels its members to undertake to inform customers and recall and replace the faulty product, or re-do the service.
As part of a multi-million dollar (US) investment in its satellite business, Liquid Telecom became the first operator to build a satellite hub at Teraco’s recently unveiled vendor-neutral earth station in South Africa. This hub enables the telco to route African traffic in Africa rather than backhauling it via Europe as many operators need to do. By doing so, it says it has reduced latency and increased connectivity speeds for its customers.
Overseas
Companies
RF Micro Devices and TriQuint Semiconductor announced a definitive merger agreement under which the companies will combine in an all-stock transaction. To reflect the nature of this transaction as a merger of equals, the new company will have a new (as yet unannounced) name and shared leadership team. TriQuint shareholders will receive 1,675 shares and RFMD shareholders will receive 1 share of the new company per share currently held.
Silicon Labs has purchased the full product portfolio and intellectual property of Touchstone Semiconductor, an early-stage power management technology company and provider of high-performance, low-power analog IC products. Silicon Labs purchased the assets of Touchstone for $1,5 million. The transaction adds almost 70 analog products to Silicon Labs’ portfolio including op-amps, current sense amplifiers, low-power analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), comparators, power management ICs, timers, and voltage detectors and references.
Microsemi’s IGLOO2 FPGA family won the DesignVision Award in the semiconductor components category at the 2014 DesignCon conference. The technology was cited for its broad feature set as well as its sensitivity to total system cost, helping it satisfy the needs of designers working on products for many different applications.
Rochester Electronics has entered into a continuing solution agreement with NXP Semiconductors to supply end-of-life products discontinued by NXP. The full list of devices covered, which is extensive, is available to view at www.rocelec.com/files/web-content/nxp-receipts.pdf.
Industry
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $26,28 billion for the month of January 2014, an increase of 8,8% from January 2013 and marking the industry’s highest ever January sales total and the largest year-to-year increase in nearly three years. Global sales for January 2014 were 1,4% lower than the December 2013 total of $26,65 billion, reflecting normal seasonal trends.
SEMI reported that worldwide sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment totalled $31,58 billion in 2013, representing a year-over-year decrease of 14%. Spending rates declined for all regions tracked in the report, except for China and Taiwan. For the second year in a row, Taiwan remained the region with the highest amount of spending with $10,57 billion in equipment sales. The North American market surpassed South Korea to claim second place with $5,26 billion in sales; South Korea fell to the third position with a regional decrease of 41%.
The Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) announced the availability of the first version of ULPBench, a standardised method developed and endorsed by industry to encourage microcontroller vendors to provide application developers with accurate, reliable information that allows them to equitably compare the efficiency of microcontrollers targeted at ultra-low power (ULP) applications.
Technology
Hornby Hobbies has upped the technological ante for its Scalextric slot cars by giving its latest models Bluetooth Smart wireless connectivity to allow them to be controlled by a compatible device such as a smartphone. The cars achieve this using an nRF51822 system-on-chip (SoC) from Nordic Semiconductor, while an optional wireless controller employs Nordic’s nRF24LE1 2,4 GHz SoC to provide connectivity between the controller and the Powerbase track accessory, and pit lanes.
Belgium’s Imec, in collaboration with Vrije Universiteit Brussel, has developed the world’s first 79 GHz radar transmitter implemented in plain digital 28 nm CMOS. With an output power above 10 dBm, the transmitter front-end paves the way towards full radar-on-chip solutions for automotive and smart environment applications. With a supply voltage of 0,9 V, the continuous wave device consumes only 121 mW and is fully compliant with the spectral mask imposed by ETSI.
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