With the end of the year fast approaching, this will be the last issue of Dataweek until January, as we follow the example of the industry we serve by shutting down over December. As we have done for the last two years, we will also be publishing the 2017 edition of the Electronics Manufacturing & Production (EMP) Handbook, which will be posted together with said January issue. Now into its third edition, we hope the handbook will once again prove useful in getting the electronics manufacturing industry off to a ‘productive’ start in the new year.
While it’s impossible to be sure what 2017 has in store for the electronics industry, it will be interesting to see if certain recent trends will continue to play out. The last couple of years have seen some very high-profile merger and acquisition activity amongst chip manufacturers, the most notable being Cypress Semiconductor’s buyout of Spansion; Microchip Technology buying Atmel; Analog Devices acquiring Linear Technology; and most recently ON Semiconductor’s purchase of Fairchild Semiconductor and Qualcomm’s buyout of NXP Semiconductors. The latter was particularly surprising given that NXP itself acquired Freescale Semiconductor less than a year ago. If rumours are to be believed, the next big-hitter to go on the auction block might well be Cypress Semiconductor.
On the home front, it’s mostly been a case of business as usual, with manufacturers continuing to make the best of trying circumstances and distributors holding their own relative to each other. The industry body AREI (Association of Representatives for the Electronics Industry) recently elected its new committee with Warren Muir as chairman. The association has traditionally been dominated by distributors but has been making a big push towards increasing the number of members from the manufacturing sphere – a move that I wholly support, and it couldn’t have come too soon. With a new chairman as well as two other committee members who are based in manufacturing, I’m looking forward to seeing how this might alter AREI’s focus and hope to see it develop a louder voice for the South African electronics sector as a whole. You can read Warren’s thoughts on this and other topics in 'New chairman outlines AREI vision'.
Of course, the end of the year is always particularly stressful for one particular group of citizens: students. As if studying, writing exams and waiting nervously for results wasn’t bad enough, the class of 2017 has major unrest to worry about. The wave of recent protests across the country over fees has seen several universities cancel lectures for the remainder of the year, and my sympathy goes out to all the honest, hardworking students impacted by the situation. Sadly these protests seem to have become an annual occurrence, and perhaps it’s just my imagination, but they seem to grow more radicalised every year. I hope government comes up with a long-term plan to solve this problem, and soon, because as it stands it’s a lose-lose for everyone involved.
And on that happy note – until next year, and on behalf of the whole Dataweek team I wish all our readers a wonderful festive season.
Brett van den Bosch
Editor
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