Southern Africa
Izingwe consortium, led by the former Nedcor director, Sipho Pityana, has bought up a 30% stake in power and telecommunications cable maker, Aberdare Cables, for R165m.
Sentech has awarded Grintek Telecom a contract to supply its international gateway platform for Sentech's Carrier of Carriers licence. This affords Sentech the ability to provide an enhanced service of the wholesale traffic of data, voice and Internet services to telecom operators locally and internationally. All Sentech's international voice traffic is carried on the new system. Grintek says that the system is operational and will be increasingly exploited as Sentech builds its customer base for both its Carrier of Carriers and multimedia businesses. This move is expected to grow revenues, especially in the coming year, it said.
Transtel and Wireless G have concluded an agreement to jointly roll-out public WiFi hotspots. Already having established several hotspots in parts of the Western Cape, the partners intend to extend this to 100 venues before the end of this year.
Symbol Technologies and Broadband Communication Technologies have established a large wireless hot-spot to offer wireless Internet access for visitors to the Sandton City Mall. The wireless local area network infrastructure is based on Symbol's Spectrum24 wireless technology and operates at speeds up to 11 Mbps.
The South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) has elected its first black president, Ben Ngulube. Bea Lacquet, professor of electronics at Wits School of Electrical and Information Engineering, has been appointed deputy president. Ngulube says the organisation is focused on education and the promotion of maths and science subjects in secondary and tertiary institutions. It is aimed at equipping students from all groups with the skills necessary to embark on engineering careers, he says. "We are determined to widen the community of well-qualified, high-quality engineers whose skills are on a par with world standards. Our country has a history of expertise which cannot be compromised by lowering standards of education," he says. "Our commitment in this area has led us to make representations to the Minister of Education regarding the present trend for matriculants to write maths and science on standard grade, leaving them unprepared for university courses."
Having just returned home from hosting an SMS Workshop at the 2004 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France, Clickatell will once again be sharing its expertise at the 2004 Vodacom Mobile Expo. Clickatell says its SMS workshop will give a comprehensive overview of the SMS industry including the latest technologies, integration with Clickatell's carrier-grade SMS gateway through multiple protocols, technical features of SMS and the future of the mobile messaging industry in general.
Overseas
Business
German telecommunications giant, Deutsche Telekom, announced it was back in the black last year, producing net profit of $1,25 bn compared with a record $24,6 bn loss a year earlier.
National Semiconductor made a net profit of $93,1m on revenues of $513,6m for the third quarter of fiscal 2004, the company reported. National's Q3 sales were 27% higher than the third quarter of fiscal 2003 and 8,5% higher sequentially from the second quarter of fiscal 2004, when it reported revenues of $473,5m. "National's sales into the PC and wireless handset markets were better sequentially than we usually see at this time of year," said Brian Halla, National's chief executive officer. "Beyond those markets, demand in general for National's analog products picked up during the quarter, particularly in power management, and that is translating into growth in sales and profits."
Wolfson Microelectronics, of Edinburgh, Scotland, produced maiden full year results as a listed company for the 12 months ended 31 December 2003. Its sales more than doubled to $75,7m and profits more than tripled. Sales increased by 125% over 2002's figure of $33,7m. This was due to multiple improvements including a number of design wins for mixed-signal circuits with leading companies and due to increased penetration into Japan, it said. Profit before tax increased to $12,5m compared to $3,6m in 2002.
Companies
Xilinx has signed an agreement to acquire Triscend, a developer of configurable embedded microcontrollers that combine ARM processor cores with field programmable logic.
PLX Technology has signed a definitive agreement to acquire NetChip Technology, a supplier of chips for USB and PCI.
Samsung Electronics and Sony have agreed to create a joint company, named S-LCD Corporation, to manufacture amorphous thin-film-transistor liquid crystal display products.
Bookham Technology has completed its acquisition of New Focus.
Micrel has acquired a controlling interest in BlueChip Communications, an Oslo-based developer of RF integrated circuits and modules. Micrel's current RadioWire line of RF chips were developed in conjunction with BlueChip.
Canadian company, Gennum, has acquired 12,4% of the outstanding equity of Toumaz Technology, a UK-based designer of mixed-signal chips. Formed in 2000, Toumaz is a spinout from Imperial College, London. Their common interest is in developing ultra low-power wireless devices.
ARM has added MeriTech to its Approved Training Centre Programme. MeriTech, based in Seoul, Korea, will bring its knowledge and experience of ARM technology to the developer community in Korea.
Infineon, Philips and STMicroelectronics are teaming up with European technology research laboratories to start a new CMOS logic technology development project called NanoCMOS. The project's goal is to demonstrate the feasibility of 45-nm compatible CMOS logic technology in SRAMs by the end of 2005. They will also research next-generation 32- and 22-nm technology nodes.
Eikos, a developer and manufacturer of transparent carbon nanotube inks for conductive coatings and circuits, has announced a collaboration with Ethertouch, a Malaysian developer of pointing and input devices for mobile phones and portable devices. Eikos will develop the application of a transparent conductive coating to cellphone lenses that will enable Ethertouch's innovative 'touch-free touch-screen' display technology. Designed to complement or replace pushbuttons or scrolling wheels, the technology could be used in cellphones in as little as two years, according to the companies.
Industry
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced worldwide sales of semiconductors were $15,55 bn in January - down 3% from $16,03 bn in December 2003. It said the January downturn was in line with seasonal norms. The January 2004 sales figure was up 26,6% year-over-year. Reflecting typical seasonal demand patterns, it said nine out of 12 product sectors were down modestly in January from December levels, while standard cells, analog and programmable logic devices (PLD) recorded flat to modestly rising growth owing to the renewed strength of the wired market. The organisation re-affirmed its forecast for the chip market to grow by 19,4% in 2004.
In-Stat/MDR has forecast that the worldwide merchant market dollar consumption of customer-specific, cell-based designs, containing at least one 16-bit processor is going to decrease from $374,9m in 2003 to $363,5m in 2008. This is equivalent to a compound annual shrinkage rate of 0,6% over the 2003 to 2008 period timeframe, the company said.
iSuppli has raised its forecast for cellphone shipments in 2004, expecting it to hit 570 units in 2004, up 3,6% from its original forecast, and a 9,4% jump over 2003. The analyst group also says OEMs are unable to ship as many phones as they would like due to ongoing component shortages. Parts in short supply are colour displays, modules, sensors amongst others.
More than 25% of all mobile phones sold this year will be camera phones and sales of the devices will increase at a rate of 55% a year after that, according to a study released by InfoTrends Research Group.
Digital TVs and cameras are hot, but game machines are not in the consumer markets for 2004, according to iSuppli. Game machines are reaching the saturation point, as the market is expected to hit 30 million in terms of worldwide unit shipments in 2004, down 9% from 33 million in 2003. Digital TVs are expected to hit 15,3 million units in 2004, up 118% from 2003. The digital still camera market will grow to 52 million units in 2004, up 27% from 2003.
According to a report from New York investment firm, SG Cowen Securities, the peak in the current semiconductor recovery cycle is expected to last much longer than previously thought and occur sometime in 2006. However, the chip market is also expected to hit some unforeseen bumps in late 2004, due in part to a slower demand.
A report on the market for MEMS-based microphones and microspeakers, published by The Information Network, states that MEMS technology for microphones and microspeakers is set to reach volume production levels in 2004 with 50 million units shipping.
Frontier Silicon, a leading UK manufacturer of outsourced (or fabless) semiconductors for digital TV/radio and consumer multimedia products, has announced that it has shipped more than 500 000 units of its digital audio broadcast (DAB) chips worldwide, making the company's chip the market leader in DAB devices.
Microchip Technology announced it shipped its three billionth PICmicro microcontroller to American Power Conversion (APC). The three-billionth unit was the PIC18F452 8-bit Flash microcontroller, which uses Microchip's latest architecture and proprietary high-reliability PEEC-flash technology.
Twenty driverless vehicles - described as supercomputers on wheels - began a race on 13 March across the southern California desert from Barstow to Las Vegas, in a million-dollar competition sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Participants were given approximately 1000 global-positioning-system 'way points' to define the course, only two hours before the start.
Marvell has announced that its Discovery III System controller family was named 'Product of the Year' by analogZONE. Marvell said the Discovery III system controller family was chosen for its high performance, broad platform integration, and wide adoption by major, worldwide customers. According to analogZONE, an independent resource for the semiconductor industry, the Discovery III line of I/O controllers offers an 'excellent mix of must-have features and a bottleneck-free interconnect architecture'.
According to a study, published by UN University in Tokyo, manufacturing one desktop PC requires more than 240 kg of fossil fuels, or about 10 times its weight, requires 22 kg of chemicals and 1500 kg of water. In contrast, the amount of fossil fuels needed to make cars and refrigerators is roughly equal to their weights.
Technology
Artimi, a fabless UK semiconductor company, said it has demonstrated its ultrawideband (UWB) wireless technology to selected customers and taken delivery of first silicon from its foundry. The demonstration is unique in the industry in that it shows integrated multimedia and data transmission via the company's complete end-to-end system solution in a noisy 'real-world' environment, from standard NDIS driver on one PC to a standard NDIS driver on another, said the company.
Microchip has launched a new online 'Motor Control Design Center' at www.microchip.com/motor to help engineers at all experience levels to apply electronic motor control to their embedded designs. It also features complete access to the company's motor control application notes, reference designs and other technical documentation.
Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe has released a Bluetooth surface-mount type wireless technology module for embedded applications in a footprint of 10 x 9,5 x 1,9 mm. It has a UART hardware interface, a high rank protocol stack and GAP, SPP and DUN profiles to reduce the burden on the host CPU. Users are able to choose between the host controller interface (HCI) and the serial port profile (SPP) interface. Output is +4 dBm max, and receiver sensitivity is -70 dBm. It operates from 2,2 to 3,6 V d.c.
Radixs has unveiled the world's first 'universal mobile operating system' which it says offers users the power of the PC alongside the ability to create information and be entertained while 'on the go.' The launch of the 'Motion eXperience Interface' (MXI) OS signals a significant change in the way consumers can use wireless devices for computing and communications, it claims. MXI's core strength provides instant desktop computing experiences and applications on mobile devices without any redevelopment. It also allows interoperability between various platforms, networks, software and hardware components.
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