South Africa
Nordson DAGE announced the appointment of Techmet Equipment, a division of SMT Afritech, as the distributor for its X-ray inspection equipment for southern Africa. Commenting on the news, Russell Byrne, Nordson Test and Inspection (EMEA) said, “We are confident that Techmet, with their expertise and customer support structure, will offer the inspections market our leading-edge technologies in the field of X-ray inspection and we look forward to working with Techmet in this market and growing our market share.”
Conical Technologies has been appointed as an official South African distributor for Mornsun. Headquartered in China, Mornsun has grown into a leading industrial power supply manufacturer that specialises in magnetic isolation technology and product research and application, and manufactures high-quality products including AC/DC converters, DC/DC converters, adaptors, isolation transmitters, IGBT drivers, LED drivers and more.
Overseas
Companies
Farnell, an Avnet company, is now shipping a broad range of ON Semiconductor products to support a new framework to help OEMs more rapidly develop end-to-end Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The new framework simplifies the process of building IoT-enabled devices through rapid prototyping system solutions from ON Semiconductor that are preconfigured to connect to IoT application developers and service providers through the cloud. Avnet’s IoTConnect platform, powered by Microsoft Azure and the associated Avnet IoT Partner Program, facilitates this connection.
Digi International has acquired Dallas-based Haxiot, an industry leader in end-to-end LoRaWAN-based solutions. Terms of the acquisition were not immediately disclosed. Founded in 2015, Haxiot has an extensive product portfolio that includes high-performance client modules, intelligent industrial devices, gateways and the highly scalable X-ON cloud IoT platform.
Industry
Total semiconductor unit shipments, which include integrated circuits as well as optoelectronics, sensor/actuator and discrete devices, are forecast to rise 13% in 2021 to 1,135 trillion units, to set a new all-time annual record, based on data from IC Insights. This follows a 3% increase in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic was wreaking havoc across many segments of the economy. From 1978, when 32,6 billion units were shipped, through 2021, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for semiconductor units is forecast to be 8,6%.
Global sales for the semiconductor industry were $39,6 billion for the month of February 2021 according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), an increase of 14,7% over the February 2020 total of $34,5 billion, but 1,0% less than the January 2021 total of $40,0 billion. Regionally, year-to-year sales increased across all markets: China (18,9%), Asia Pacific/All Other (18,2%), the Americas (9,7%), Japan (7,6%), and Europe (6,8%).
Avnet Silica has been awarded ‘Best Demand Creation Distributor in EMEA 2020’ by Micron Technology, an industry leader in innovative memory and storage technologies. During the 2020 fiscal year, Avnet Silica generated more than 50% of Micron’s demand creation revenue across its distribution network in EMEA.
Technology
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have uncovered an innovative way to tap into the over-capacity of 5G networks, turning them into a ‘wireless power grid’ for powering IoT devices that today need batteries to operate. They have developed a flexible Rotman lens-based rectifying antenna (rectenna) system capable, for the first time, of millimetre-wave harvesting in the 28 GHz band. This robust system may open the door for new passive, long-range, mm-wave 5G-powered RFID for wearable and ubiquitous IoT applications. A professor at the institute who specialises in flexible electronics predicts that power as a service will be the next big application for the telecom industry, just as data overtook voice services as a major revenue producer.
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