Southern Africa
Technikon Pretoria and Grintek have partnered in a bid intended to considerably enhance training in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) in Mpumalanga. A state-of-the-art engineering computer laboratory will be established at the Nelspruit Campus of the Technikon. Grintek is funding the establishment with a donation of R400 000 which will be used to equip the facility. It will be unique in the region and will be used in the presentation of courses in Electrical Engineering. The Grintek Engineering Computer Laboratory was officially launched on 23 January by Zoli Kunene, chairperson of the Grintek Group, and Prof Reggie Ngcobo, vice-chancellor and rector of Technikon Pretoria.
GSM network operator MTN is acquiring sophisticated and highly secure SIM (subscriber identity module) cards from electronic payments company, Prism Holdings, enabling the delivery of a host of value-added payment services and applications to MTN's mobile subscribers. This follows MTN placing a series of multimillion rand orders for Prism's locally developed 32K GSM SIMs. The SIMs are based on Prism's aSIMetrix multi-application value-added services (VAS) platforms. "The utilisation of the SIM will enable MTN to leapfrog the market and deliver 'extended' services on its existing 2G and 2,5G infrastructure," says Steven Sidley, marketing director at Prism Holdings. "Prism has gained considerable experience internationally in rolling out successful mobile payment services."
The Standards Division of the SABS has changed its name and is now developing and publishing standards under the banner of Standards South Africa, to distinguish itself from the identity of its SABS parent organisation. The identity change was identified as necessary during the recent review of South Africa's SQAM (Standards, Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Legal Metrology) infrastructure commissioned by the DTI. According to Standards South Africa this is part of an ongoing implementation programme of transformation deemed necessary to bring it closer to its stakeholders. All national standards are being redesignated as SANS (South African National Standards), as opposed to SABS standards. Old standards numbers will not fall away immediately, it says, but will run in parallel with the new numbering system for at least 5 years during which time both numbers will be legally valid. For further information contact [email protected] .
The simple e-mail remains the Internet's most powerful application. Now driving the trend is e-mail that is graphically enhanced, or content-rich. According to South African company Quattro, its GraphicMail tool is turning e-mail into a multimedia interface. With offices in Brussels and Cape Town, Quattro uses the tool to empower small and medium-sized businesses with the ability to create well-designed graphic communications as professional as those of multinational corporations. Accessible online, GraphicMail allows users to insert images, animations, colours and fonts into their designs or preformatted templates. The system automatically sends e-mails and manages distribution lists, including bounces and subscribers.
Vodacom has announced it now has over 8 million customers on the African continent. There are 7,5 million in SA, 200 000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 380 000 in Tanzania and 67 000 customers in Lesotho.
Sivan Electronic Supplies has been appointed as the sole distributor for Cosmo Ferrites and Norwe. Norwe is a leader in coilformers and accessories.
Electronic and Mechanical Products (EMP) has moved from its Durban offices to its original offices located in Centurion: 18 Uitzicht Office Park, 2 Bellingham Road, Highveld Ext 1, Centurion. Tel: 012 665 4930, Fax: 012 665 4931, cell: 082 556 8217.
Hawker Richardson has moved premises to: 90 Oxford Road, French Park, Unit 2, Ferndale. Tel: 011 792 2766, fax: 011 791 1237.
Overseas
Business
Analog Devices has announced revenues of $467,4m for first quarter fiscal 2003. Revenues increased 19% from the first quarter of fiscal 2002 and 3% from the quarter immediately prior. "Both revenue and earnings were slightly better than we expected when we provided guidance on 19 November 2002, primarily as a result of stronger sales of our wireless analog and DSP products," said Jerald G. Fishman, president and CEO. "In the first quarter, both analog and DSP sales grew sequentially, with higher growth from DSP products. Geographically, growth was the strongest in Southeast Asia and in Europe and weaker in North America and Japan."
ON Semiconductor has announced that total revenues for Q4 2002 were $266m, a decrease of $6m, or 2%, from the Q3 in 2002 and a decrease of $1m, or 0,5%, from Q4 2001. It reported a net loss of $42m in the fourth quarter, which included $17,5m of restructuring and other charges, as compared to a net loss of $23m in Q3 2002. Total revenue for 2002 was $1,1 bn, down 11% from $1,2 bn in 2001. Net loss for 2002 was $150m, which included restructuring and other charges of $27,7m and an extraordinary loss on debt prepayment of $6,5m. In 2001 net loss was $847m, which included restructuring and other charges. The company anticipates that total revenues will be flat to down 4% from the fourth quarter of 2002, and that the 2003 first quarter gross margin will be down 200 to 300 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2002 primarily resulting from pricing pressure.
Companies
Ixys has announced that it has reorganised its wholly-owned subsidiary, Directed Energy (DEI), resulting in two divisions, thereby creating a newly formed division called Ixys RF. The new division is chartered with developing a new generation of devices including RF MOSFETs, RF driver ICs, GaAs devices, RF modules and ICs. Target markets include medical imaging, RF plasma generators, cable TV, TV broadcast, and professional radio service communications.
Molex has announced that it has acquired several product lines and assets of Schott Optovance, a specialty glass and optical products supplier and subsidiary of glass product maker Schott Corp. Under the agreement, Molex will now sell Schott's Optical Shuffle and Light Dealer optical product lines.
Royal Philips Electronics and BenQ of Taiwan, have announced the establishment of an optical storage joint venture company, Philips BenQ Digital Storage, to cooperate in the areas of new optical standards, research, and particularly in the definition of product roadmaps, product development, manufacturing of products, and customer support of optical storage devices for data applications.
Unique Memec and IBM Microelectronics have expanded their distribution agreement from North America to include Asia. Unique, a Memec plc division will focus on supporting IBM PowerPC products. The agreement encompasses Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand immediately, and will become effective in the Southeast Asian region 1 April. Unique Memec combines IBM PowerPC microprocessors and embedded processors with complementary technologies, according to the distributor. Incorporating these combined technologies at a design's core level is geared toward creating demand for supplier semiconductors and expedites time-to-market for customer systems, it says.
Design tool provider for micro-electrical mechanical systems (MEMS), Coventor, has announced a partnership with EDA company Cadence Design Systems to build a comprehensive design suite for next-generation MEMS and microfluidic devices.
Motorola Ventures, the venture capital arm of Motorola, has made an equity investment in Clarisay, a provider of surface acoustic wave (SAW) component technology. Clarisay's Tophat is a patented technology that creates a protective, hermetic seal over the sensitive active area of an unpassivated device.
Former Philips Semiconductors spin-out company, TriMedia Technologies, is folding operations back into the parent organisation. The California-based TriMedia offered for license a high-performance DSP architecture that was optimised for multimedia applications. Philips will continue to support the licensees of the TriMedia architecture.
Industry
Global semiconductor sales reached $12,5 bn in December 2002, bringing total revenue for the year to $140,7 bn, a 1,3% increase from the 2001 level of $138,9 bn, according to recent report issued by the Semiconductor Industry Association. During the year's final quarter, revenue rose 1,9% sequentially to $37,6 bn from $36,9 bn, following increases of 5,6%, 5,8% and 8,2% in the first three quarters of 2002, and was up 23% over the corresponding quarter of 2001. Throughout the year, the worldwide wireless sector recorded the most vigorous growth. Unit sales of handsets grew by double-digits in the fourth quarter, producing growth of 13,2% in Flash and 6,8% in DSPs. PCs continue to be the single largest end market for semiconductors, accounting for 30% of total chip consumption. Microprocessors and DRAMs were up 10,1% and 7,6% respectively. The consumer sector, including DVDs and digital cameras, continues to drive new growth, especially in application-specific products, while WiFi (802.11) has emerged as another brisk growth driver for semiconductors. The SIA's Global Sales Report (GSR) is a three-month moving average of sales activity.
Forward Concepts has reported that there is some good news in the semiconductor industry after all: the DSP market grew much faster than expected in 2002, while the business looks promising in 2003. According to the research group, DSP chips for cellular handsets constitute the largest market and are the real market movers for 2003 and going forward. It predicts the DSP business to grow 20% to $5,8 bn for 2003, to $7,7 bn in 2004, to $9,9 bn in 2005, to $12,4 bn in 2006, to $14,9 bn in 2007. According to its 'Top DSP Chip Suppliers in 2002' ranking, Texas Instruments dominated the digital signal processor (DSP) market for 2002. TI's DSP market share grew from 40% in 2001, to 43,2% in 2002, a 23,2% change. Motorola jumped from third to second place, with 14,1% share, while Agere fell to third place, as its share dropped from 16,1% in 2001, to 13,9% in 2002, it said. Analog Devices was in fourth place, with 8,9% market share for 2002.
While current economic conditions will affect all aspects of the semiconductor industry, the impact on the embedded FPGA (field-programmable gate arrays) market should be minimal, according to In-Stat/MDR. Because this market is still in its very early stages of development, it will not experience the same degree of negativity as seen in more mature market segments, such as the dynamic RAM market, said the high-tech research firm. In the case of embedded FPGA technology, several companies have already made substantial investments in its development. Investments, which while slowing due to general economic conditions, are unlikely to be aborted. "At most, what we will see is a delay in the rollout of the technology, coupled with a slight revenue decline, in both last year and in this year, as well," says Jerry Worchel, a senior analyst. "However, by the first part of 2003, embedded FPGA technology will be well on its way to recovery and growth."
The ATM Forum recently published a new white paper, Homeland Security & Public Safety Networks: Countering Terrorism and Disaster with Technology. It can be viewed or downloaded at www.atmforum.com/aboutatm/HomelandSecurity.html. The paper discusses efforts underway in ETSI TETRA, Project MESA and The ATM Forum in support of secure network infrastructure and enhanced disaster response systems.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has signed an agreement to hold its sixth international telecommunication exhibition and forum for the Africa region in Cairo, in 2004.
EBV has redefined its design support with a new three-pillar concept of knowledge management. EBV Elektronik's design support strategy for clients' projects comprises: design partner network; pan-European competence teams; and a knowledge database.
By arranging partnerships with leading design companies, EBV said it will be able to increase its technical support by connecting the customers with specialists to solve complex application designs. So far, agreements have been made with 20 companies who will act as exclusive design partners for EBV. The second pillar of EBV's technical competence concept is based upon the competence teams - highly specialised FAEs whose know-how is available to its 90 FAEs throughout Europe and basically multiplies specific competence for a wider re-use. The third dimension introduced is an online knowledge-management system. This database contains detailed specifications of EBV's manufacturer's electronics components. Also, all FAEs report problems found in clients' projects and the solution they worked out. This minimises duplicated efforts.
IC Insights projects that the compound-semiconductor device market will experience an average annual growth rate of 22% from 2002 through 2007. This compares to a 10% forecast for the total IC market over the same time period. It says that compound-semi materials, such as gallium arsenide (GaAs), silicon germanium (SiGe), and indium phosphide (InP), have transformed from small-scale demand for niche applications to high-volume demand for advanced communications systems.
Mobile broadband wireless access is poised to take a major step forward, according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The next two years will see a standard developed to create an air-interface that delivers service levels to mobile users travelling at speeds as great as 250 km/h that are comparable to wired broadband systems, such as cable and DSL connections. The standard, IEEE P802.20, "Standard Air Interface for Mobile Broadband Wireless Access Systems Supporting Vehicular Mobility - Physical and Media Access Control Layer Specification," will set out to boost realtime data transmission rates in wireless metropolitan area networks from the dial-up rates of today's cellular phones to a broadband experience of 1 Mbps or more. By providing ubiquitous mobile broadband networking based on cell ranges of up to 15 km or more, the ITU says that this standard would remove barriers for mobile interactive voice, video and data services.
Corning has announced that it will discontinue commercialisation of its wavelength switch and wavelength blocker product lines.
Marvell, a technology leader in the development of extreme broadband communications and storage solutions, was recently honoured with 'product of the year' for its Prestera Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switch family as chosen by analogZONE, a leading resource for the semiconductor industry. The Marvell Prestera GbE switch was selected in the LAN/enterprise/access category for its ability to provide exceptional enterprise switching and routing performance with industry-leading features.
Intel founder Gordon Moore, famously noted for his axiom that 'the number of transistors in a processor will double every 18 months', has formulated another prediction about his own law. During a keynote address at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco, Moore said he believes his axiom will hold true for at least '10 years, plus or minus two years.'
Technology
The system-on-chip movement is 'dead,' ambushed by the cost of additional mask layers needed to marry digital logic with memory and analog functions, Intel architecture manager Jay Heeb told the recent International Solid-State Circuits Conference, according to an EE Times report. Rather than SoCs, the chip industry will move instead to 3D devices distantly related to today's stacked packages, it said. Heeb said that the SoC is dead because of too many mask layers. "We need to be bolting the optimum technologies together in what I call a So3D, a system-in-3D package. Then we can tune an application to a specific, optimum substrate," he stated.
Samsung Electronics has introduced what it claims is the industry's first multichip package that includes NAND flash along with an ARM-based processor and SDRAM memory. The 'System-in-Package' is designed to have a low form factor and to reduce component count in handheld devices. The 17 x 17 x 1,4 mm multichip package includes a 203 MHz ARM920T processor, a 256 Mbit NAND flash and 256 Mbit SDRAM.
At the ISSCC, Intel described several technologies to enable high-speed, low-power processors - promising to bring 10 GHz or faster microprocessors by the end of the decade. The so-called 'building blocks' include a 3,5 GHz multiphase clock generator, a 5 GHz floating point multiply and accumulate unit, and 'sleep transistors' for use in low-power applications. Intel also delivered papers on special-purpose hardware blocks.
Intel has launched the PXA800F cellular processor, intended for inclusion in 2,5G handsets (for GSM/GPRS cellular networks). The PXA800F processor features an XScale processor running at a clock frequency of 312 MHz, 4 Mbytes of flash memory, and a 104 MHz signal processor. '2,5G networks' are being rolled out across Europe and elsewhere ahead of third generation mobile communications.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo claim they have developed an optical technology that could make one 'invisible'. According to reports, the technology enables camouflaged objects to appear transparent by wearing an optical device comprised of retroreflective material that gives a transparent or invisible effect.
A project to build a self-contained, mm-scale sensing and communication platform for a massively distributed sensor network is underway at the University of Berkeley. The devices in the 'Smart Dust' project will be around the size of a grain of sand and will contain sensors, computational ability, bi-directional wireless communications, and a power supply, while also being inexpensive enough to deploy in the hundreds. The goal is to build a complete, complex system in a tiny volume using state-of-the art technologies - as opposed to futuristic technologies.
See www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/~warneke.
Obituary
It is with sadness that Dataweek announces that Henry Sun, managing director of Suntronika, passed away on 26 January 2003.
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