Southern Africa
Prism has announced it has delivered and implemented Thales e-security EMV P3 (personalisation preparation process) software at three of South Africa's leading banks in deals valued at over R6,4 million. P3 generates and manages all the cryptographically derived data (keys, certificates, signatures) and other information - personal details such as account number and name - required for blank bank cards to be personalised, says Prism. The deadline for South African banks and retailers to be EMV-compliant is 1 January 2005.
Grintek Aviation Systems has announced two new contracts: Botswana's Department of Civil Aviation has appointed Grintek to upgrade its VHF communications network. The contract includes the provision of two new sites, inclusive of all civil infrastructure and equipment, as well as the integration of seven existing communication sites to provide a fully integrated VHF communications network across the country's air space. Grintek Aviation Systems has also been awarded a contract to supply the instrument landing system and distance measurement equipment to the Alor Setar Airport, in the northern region of Malaysia. This contract includes the installation and commissioning of the equipment as well as the training of on-site personnel.
South African researchers and industry have the opportunity to participate in one of the biggest research funding mechanisms available globally - the European Union (EU) Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). As this is a complex set of mechanisms, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has appointed seven people to be SA's network of National Contact Points (NCPs). The aim is for them to assist the DST specifically in maximising the country's participation in FP6 ( http://fp6.cordis.lu). FP6 is divided into a number of areas, of which the largest is the Information Society Technologies (IST) theme. The other six NCP themes are: Food quality and safety; Life sciences, genomic and biotechnology; Nanotechnologies and nanosciences, knowledge-based multifunctional materials, and new production processes and devices; Aeronautics; Space; Sustainable development, global change and ecosystems.
Desta Power Matla (DPM), the black empowered subsidiary of ABB Powertech Transformers, jointly owned by ABB South Africa and Powertech, has announced that it is being re-launched with a brand new corporate identity. DPM is the result of the successful merger of three former competitors, namely Desta Transformers, ABB Powertech Distribution Transformers and Power Engineers.
Dimension Data's Advanced Infrastructure division has appointed Falcon Electronics as its primary supplier of cabling products. See Dimension Data appoints BEE company as primary cabling and networking supplier.
Electrocomp has announced that it has been appointed as an official Sub-Distributor for Maxim Integrated Products and Dallas Semiconductor products in South Africa.
Electrocomp was recently awarded its new listed status for Quality Management to ISO 9001:2000.
Grafoplast Wiremarkers SA has opened a Durban office to enhance service to its strengthening customer base in the KwaZulu-Natal area. As specialists in cable and wire identification systems and associated products as well as DIN rail mount electronics and accessories, Grafoplast is entrenched as a major supplier to the sugar producing sector and the industries within the zone of Richards Bay. The new premises are in Moore Road, Glenwood, 031 201 9635.
Overseas
Business
Samsung Electronics posted record sales of around $12,4 bn in Q1, up 50,2% from the same period a year ago. It posted a net profit of $2,7 bn during the quarter, up 178,2% from last year.
Intel reported first quarter revenue of $8,1 bn, down 7% sequentially and up 20% year-over-year. Net income was $1,7 bn for Q1, down 20% sequentially and up 89% year-over-year.
Sun Microsystems reported a third-quarter loss of $760m. Revenue dropped by 5% to $2,65 bn from $2,79 bn in the same period a year ago.
Texas Instruments reported Q1 2004 revenue of $2936m, an increase of 6% sequentially and 34% from the year-ago quarter due to strength in TI's semiconductor business. It said semiconductor revenue increased 5% sequentially due to strong demand across a broad range of products, especially Digital Light Processing and high-performance analog. Growth in these areas more than offset a decline in revenue from wireless applications. TI's wireless revenue was the second highest on record despite the combination of normal handset seasonality and lower demand from TI's largest customer, it reported.
Philips Semiconductors reported an operating profit of 75 million Euros in the first quarter of 2004, compared with a loss of 178 million Euros for the same period a year ago. Sales rose 16% to 1,3 billion Euros for the first quarter.
Motorola's Semiconductor Products Segment (SPS), now called Freescale Semiconductor, posted sales of $1,4 bn in the first quarter of 2004, flat from the fourth quarter of 2003 and up 21% compared with the previous year's quarter. Earnings were $107m, compared with an operating loss of $121m in the year-ago quarter and a profit of $25m in the previous quarter. The company attributed the Q1 sales increase primarily to the networking and wireless markets.
Nokia reported that its mobile phone sales decreased about 15% in Q1 of 2004, to 4,3 bn Euro. Nokia's overall operating profit from all product lines declined from 1,4 bn Euro to 1,1 bn Euro.
Companies
Broadcom has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Widcomm a provider of software solutions for Bluetooth wireless products, for $49m.
RF Micro Devices has signed an agreement to acquire Silicon Wave, a leading supplier of integrated circuits for wireless personal area networks (WPANs) for approximately $10,8m.
Integrated Device Technology is acquiring ZettaCom for $35m. ZettaCom is a supplier of physical-layer switching and traffic management chips.
Synopsys has terminated its plans to acquire Monolithic System Technology, a provider of embedded memory technology.
RF Micro Devices has announced that it has reorganised in an effort to drive the company's sales beyond $1 bn within the next three years. Under the plan, the communications-chip maker will reorganise into three core business units: the Cellular Business Unit will focus on power amplifier products, small signal devices and transceiver solutions; the Wireless Connectivity Business Unit will focus on developing and producing components and SoC solutions for Bluetooth, GPS and WLANs; and the Infrastructure Business Unit will focus on components for wireless base stations.
Thales Acoustics has been renamed Racal Acoustics following its acquisition by US-based JF Lehman.
Adobe, Boeing, Intel and more than 30 other companies announced the formation of the 3D Industry Forum. The goal is to promote the adoption of a common standard so interactive 3D content can be as widely used online and in business as digital audio, video and photos. This group will work with international standards body, Ecma International, on a Universal 3D Format proposal as an ISO standard. The first version of the open format will be released later this year with a sample player and runtime libraries to support adoption and implementation.
Analog Devices, Fujitsu, Philips Semiconductor, Renesas and Toshiba have joined the Semiconductor Test Consortium, a group formed to devise an open architecture for ATE, which would enable the development of 'plug-and-play' modules to address the soaring costs of IC test. Its overall membership now includes 25 companies. STC released its first hardware and software specifications, dubbed Openstar, in 2003.
Renesas Technology has joined the so-called CellularRAM specification co-development team. CellularRAM devices are a drop-in replacement for most asynchronous low-power SRAMs used currently in cellular phone designs. They are based on a one-transistor DRAM cell. CellularRAM products are high-performance memory solutions intended to meet the needs of future 2,5G and 3G handset designs.
Atmel's German subsidiary, Atmel Germany, has joined the EPCglobal Hardware Action Group (HAG), which is developing the standard for the next-generation UHF RFID specification. EPCglobal is a non-profit joint venture of the standard organisations EAN International and the Uniform Code Council. The group, the successor of AutoID/MIT, has more than 180 members. The UHF RFID standard to be developed will include EPC code numbers stored in a tag. The standard specifies that code numbers will be sent via Internet to an ONS (object name service) database.
Maxim has announced it has filed a counterclaim against Qualcomm over CDMA patents and technologies. In 2002, Qualcomm filed suit against Maxim over patents.
Industry
After its disastrous 32% decline in 2001 and a lacklustre 2002, the worldwide semiconductor market turned up in 2003 and grew by 18,3%. In-Stat/MDR now projects that growth will be an even stronger 29% in 2004, bringing total revenue to $214,7 bn and vying with 2000 for record-high annual revenue. However, In-Stat warns that the strength of the current recovery should not be interpreted as a return to the good old days, because fundamental changes are taking place in both the demand and supply aspects. On the demand side specifically, it says there lacks the existence of a single new 'killer app' on the horizon to drive future market growth as PCs and mobile phones did in the 1990s. On the supply side, commoditisation of the CMOS process is holding prices down, and the growth of the foundry industry, particularly in China, is expected to keep competition high.
The highest growth market for cellular radios is M2M, not cellular handsets according to ABI Research. Though the market for cellular handsets is predicted to grow 10% annually through the end of the decade, the research group predicts that cellular radios for machine-to-machine (M2M) will see growth of 40% annually through 2010. Siemens, the current market leader in M2M modules, is already selling roughly one M2M module for every three handsets, according to ABI. M2M modules are basically cellular radios with accompanying functionality packaged in a slim form factor, often integrated within a larger system. They provide information to a central location over a cellular network.
Future Horizons expects radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to be a significant growth driver for the electronics sector, growing by 255% from $900m in 2003 to $2,3 bn in 2010. It reports that the market for non-label tags was 300 million units in 2003, rising to a forecasted 1 billion units in 2004, whilst the market for label tags was 300 million units in 2003, rising to a forecast 65 billion units in 2010. Typical applications such as baggage, postal and animal tagging, is well established but ultra-high volumes will come from tags in shop labelling, personal medical and bank note security, it said.
High-tech market research firm In-Stat/MDR reports that unit shipments of portable digital audio players (solid state, hard drive and revolving media) reached over 24 million units in 2003, representing revenues over $3 bn, with both unit shipments and revenues of portable digital audio players experiencing growth rates over 200%.
According to market research firm The Linley Group, the network-processor market grew about 30% in 2003 to a record value of $85m, and it predicts more than 40% growth this year to take the market to in excess of $120m. It said AMCC and Intel are driving this growth.
The growth in worldwide IC revenues is being driven primarily by increased demand for IC units as opposed to rising average selling prices (ASP), which is a positive sign indicating this boom is not over yet, according to Advanced Forecasting. Both worldwide units and worldwide revenues have shared a similar growth rate of about 15% for the last seven months after nearly a year of lagging revenue growth. "Today's situation differs from that of 2000, just prior to the 2001 recession, in that growth in worldwide IC revenues was strongly associated with increasing ASP," said Rosa Luis, a director at Advanced Forecasting. "There is currently more readily available capacity to satisfy the demand for ICs, so double-bookings of chips has not become as exaggerated as it was in 2000."
High expectations abound for the digital television (DTV) set market, according to In-Stat/MDR. With visible results from the FCC mandate on integrating digital tuners in the US, increasing numbers of terrestrial broadcasters in Europe going digital, and the price differential between an analog and digital set coming down to a reasonable level, In-Stat reckons one can expect great things from this market. As a result, the firm forecasts that DTV set unit shipments will reach 93 million units in 2008, up from 17 million units in 2004. Unit shipments will be spread worldwide, with Asia being the largest of the DTV markets.
Forty fabless semiconductor companies raised $560,1m in the first quarter of 2004, an increase of 32% over the same period in 2003, according to the Fabless Semiconductor Association. This growth represents the third straight quarter of double-digit growth for fabless funding and the longest run of continuous growth since 2000. The FSA's research noted that venture capitalists are continuing to invest in later-stage companies, as nearly three-quarters of funding deals in Q1 2004 went to companies raising their second, third or fourth rounds of funding.
The International Telecommunication Union is conducting a survey to obtain views on the perceived importance of agreed upon targets for improving connectivity and access in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Key questions are: What are the most important goals to ensure an Information Society for all? Should cyberspace be declared a resource to be shared by all for the global public good? The survey is available at www.itu.int/newsroom/wtd/2004/survey/</a>
The combined effects of supplier product rationalisation, obsolescence and stock profile reduction are now all costing connector sourcing managers both time and money, says Cross Reference Technologies (XRT). XRT, an associate company of IQC International, has thus established new online resource at www.xreftech.com intended to save them effort and cost. The Web-based, fully comprehensive connector crossreferencing application provides suitable alternative component information as well as full supplier contact details. It also enables component drawings and specifications to be displayed with part numbers. Future developments are planned to include Mil-Spec and NATO stock numbering systems.
HP has announced that it has won the Corporate Innovation Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) for the development and commercialisation of thermal inkjet technology. HP first used its thermal inkjet printing technology 20 years ago in its HP Thinkjet Printer. HP last won the IEEE Corporate Innovation Award for the pocket scientific calculator in 1989. It was the first small device capable of performing scientific operations and was designed to fit - literally - into Bill Hewlett's shirt pocket.
Atmel has announced that it has shipped its 500 millionth AVR Flash microcontroller. Atmel introduced the AVR 8-bit Microcontroller Architecture in 1997. Over the past six years, Atmel says the AVR has become the industry's largest selling 8-bit Flash micro with a market share of over 30%.
Technology
Vitesse Semiconductor claims it has achieved an industry record of 152 GHz for static frequency divider circuits. The divide-by-2 and divide-by-4 circuits were designed by BAE Systems and manufactured in Vitesse's second-generation indium phosphide heterojunction bipolar transistor process, dubbed VIP-2. This process is characterised by transistors with Ft and Fmax in excess of 300-GHz, four levels of interconnect metals, and breakdown voltage greater than 4 V.
RF Micro Devices has announced a new US patent award for its industry-leading method of power control, which is based on collector voltage control that does not require external components and demonstrates minimum variation across temperature. Using this technique in the module, RFMD said it eliminates the need for directional couplers, detector diodes, power-control ASICs and other power control circuitry on a mobile phone board designs. The technology is featured in all of RFMD's GSM/GPRS PowerStar power amplifier modules.
In a quest for materials that can be used to print low-cost plastic transistors, a team at Xerox Research Centre of Canada has designed a polymer that could be the basis for ink to print the semiconductor channels of transistors at low temperatures and in open air. The group, led by Beng Ong [pictured] has also developed materials for the conductor and the dielectric components. Companies worldwide have been competing to develop a low-cost alternative to silicon technology that could print flexible plastic transistors as easily as printing a newspaper. The technology could ultimately lead to inexpensive large-area devices like flat-panel and flexible displays and low-end RFID tags. Thus, it claims, all three elements necessary to make a plastic circuit - a semiconductor, a conductor and dielectric - may now be printed using inkjet techniques. With this development, two key elements are satisfied: one, materials that can be processed in ambient conditions, and two, compatible printing techniques.
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