Southern Africa
The convergence of telecommunications and IT has prompted IT systems and communications distributor Comztek to establish a dedicated telecoms division. Uwe Brandkamp, sales director at Comztek said that the specialist nature of telecoms played a key role in its decision to create the dedicated division. An initial key focus is VoIP. Comztek's strategy will be to address the market in three ways: through existing LAN and WAN resellers who have been asked to supply voice products to their customers; to the historic PBX vendors who recognise the shift to IP telephony; and by creating awareness in the market at end-user level to generate more demand for converged IT/voice solutions. The Comztek telecoms division will be headed by Chris Rodgers, tel: 011 237 1800.
The JSE Securities Exchange has announced that both Altron and its subsidiary company, Altech, are among the 51 companies that have successfully qualified for the JSE Security Exchange Social Responsibility Index Investment (SRI). This index showcases listed companies that have achieved the requisite score determined by a set of criteria relating to policies, performance and reporting in the triple bottom line environment as well as corporate governance practice.
Grintek Aviation Systems has been awarded a contract to supply new direction finding systems to the George, Lanseria and Kimberley airports. The Kimberley system has already been installed and commissioned. The systems for the George and Lanseria airports are currently being manufactured by Fernau Avionics of the UK.
The Ulwazi E-Learning Partnership has successfully launched an e-learning initiative run on Canopy, Motorola's new broadband wireless access technology. The project was launched in response to the dire need to improve and accelerate education throughout South Africa, particularly among disadvantaged communities, said Ron Beyers, Ulwazi project leader. Motorola's Canopy system operates in the 5 GHz band and provides data rates of up to 7 Mbps. The network allows teachers to share skills and resources, by using webcams, audio communication and electronic whiteboards.
Pick 'n Pay has implemented an uninterruptible power supply system to protect the data centre and other critical loads in its new KwaZulu-Natal regional headquarters in Westville, Durban. Supplied, installed and commissioned by Square One Power Solutions, the system is based on an APC Silcon 60 kW UPS unit complete with a sealed 10 year design life battery that can supply full power for 20 minutes. Beyond a pre-determined time, an AMF (automatic mains failure) diesel generator set kicks in.
2C Solutions, a manufacturing facility based in Cape Town, recently commissioned a Mydata TP11-UFP pick-and-place machine. 2C designs and manufactures custom thick film hybrids, transformers and cable assemblies for the local electronics market. According to the company, recent collaboration with a government agency will see it offering its manufacturing services to potential customers in the EU and South America. The company's facility provides a manufacturing solution to potential customers wanting to outsource smaller slices of turnkey projects with focus on quality and accuracy, it says.
Telkom CEO Sizwe Nxasana received an honorary doctorate in commerce, during a graduation ceremony held at the University of Fort Hare in May. The University conferred the degree to honour Nxasana for his role in the economic development of South Africa.
AGF Technology has been appointed as sole local distributor for ASI Robicon - Industrial Power Control.
The Communications Cabling Association of Southern Africa (CCASA) has elected Raletlhogonolo (Andile) Tlhoaele as chairman of the Executive Committee. This follows the stepping down of Dewald Burger as the association's executive director. Tlhoaele is also the chairman of CCASA's BEE subcommittee and a member of the ICT Charter Working Group's Task Team.
Don Todd has joined Otto Marketing as the regional sales manager for the Western and Eastern Cape. Customers in these areas may contact him on 083 610 0313 or [email protected].
Business
Marvell Technology Group reported a record $269,6m net revenue for its first fiscal quarter 2005, an increase of 60% from Q1 of a year ago and a 11% sequential increase from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2004. Net income for the chip maker was $14,5m for Q1 2005, compared with a net income of $4,4m for the same period a year ago.
Microchip said its net sales and earnings for its first quarter of fiscal 2005 are expected to exceed the upper end of prior guidance. It originally expected net sales to be up approximately 7 to 8% sequentially and now expects net sales for the first quarter to be up 10 to 11% sequentially. Said Microchip CEO Steve Sanghi: "Led by our PIC Flash microcontrollers, we are experiencing strong demand on all major product lines and in all geographies. We have seen record bookings in the first two months of the quarter."
Overseas
Companies
Dielectric Laboratories has acquired Voltronics, a designer and manufacturer of high-Q RF and microwave frequency multiturn variable capacitors.
Littelfuse has acquired 82,4% of Heinrich Industrie, the holding company of Wickmann Group for 39,5m Euros. Littelfuse is a manufacturer of circuit protection devices while Heinrich is a manufacturer of fuses for the electronics, automotive and electrical industries.
RF Micro Devices has completed its acquisition of Silicon Wave.
Intersil has acquired a substantial portion of the assets of BitBlitz Communications, a provider of high-speed serialiser-deserialisers, retimers and transponders to the networking industry. Intersil paid BitBlitz $2,5m in cash but has agreed to make an additional payment of up to $5m if certain performance milestones are met in 2004 and 2005, the company said.
SiPix, a developer of a fully-scalable electronic paper compatible with all display types has entered into an agreement with Polymer Vision, a venture in the Technology Incubator of Pilips Electronics to jointly develop a rollable, flexible electronic display. The goal is to create the thinnest, most flexible, durable and rollable display demonstrated to date, to store a large screen within a small device. The technology consists of SiPix's Microcup Electrophoretic Film (EPF) and Philips' extremely thin and flexible TFT backplane.
TechOnLine, a provider of e-learning solutions and online resources for the electronics industry, and industry association Open Core Protocol International Partnership, have partnered to expand worldwide exposure of the standards movement and to help shape, define and continue the evolution of standards for the system-on-chip (SoC) design industry. The OCP standard allows designers to re-use OCP-compliant cores across multiple designs.
M/A-COM has announced a new multiyear agreement with Ford Motor Company to provide satellite radio antennas across various vehicle lines. In addition, as part of the agreement, M/A-COM will extend its previous agreement to provide GPS navigation antennas for navigation systems.
Raytheon will receive $8m in funding from DARPA to develop networking and communications technologies for the US Army's future combat systems (FCS) and other army systems. The programme's goal is to advance a net-centric system for realtime FCS fire control and robotic missions.
Industry
The three-month average of worldwide semiconductor sales rose to $16,94 bn in April, a sequential increase of 4,1% from the $16,275 bn reported in March and a 36,7% increase from April 2003, reported the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). "Worldwide semiconductor sales in April reached the highest monthly level since July 2000," said SIA president George Scalise. "Continued strong overall economic growth in the US and China helped propel chip sales upward. The fundamentals are in place for strong growth through the remainder of the year, and it is likely that growth for 2004 will significantly surpass last fall's forecast of 19% growth."
Gartner has predicted that the worldwide semiconductor market would grow by 15% over 2004. It says global chip demand will grow 69% over the next five years to $299,3 bn in 2008, up from $177,2 bn in 2003.
The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) group has raised its forecast for worldwide semiconductor sales in 2004, expecting global chip sales to grow 28,4% to a record $213,6 bn.
According to RBC Capital Markets, digital camera shipments from Japanese suppliers were 4,7 million units in April, up 73% from the same period a year ago. The over-4 megapixel cameras now account for 50,3% of April shipments.
The deployment of UMTS services in Europe will boost global sales of UMTS handsets from a 2003 level of 4 million units to more than 15 million by the end of 2004, according to recent findings by market analyst ABI Research.
A recent In-Stat/MDR survey of corporate wireless data services users finds that: nearly 33% would be very interested in a service that would let them use a cellular phone over a WiFi network; over 50% are interested in buying a solution that would allow them to access e-mail from their mobile phone; 62% receive wireless data services from the same operator that provides them with wireless voice services, while 23% use a separate service provider for their wireless data services.
The automotive telematics market has shown a pattern of sluggish, controlled growth in recent years, with marked differences in enthusiasm between world regions, according to the most recent quarterly telematics service from ABI Research. The group believes that an absence of meaningful content has been one of the biggest issues, with many providers unable to come up with viable business plans that would allow consumers to economically take advantage of automotive-specific services. The European market has been particularly sluggish, it said, while Asia-Pacific has proved more buoyant, with South Korea and Australia showing great promise in the longer term.
Cambridge Positioning Systems has raised an additional $9m to drive global take-up of its unique Matrix mass-market high accuracy location technology. More than 10 mobile operators worldwide are undertaking trials of its software solution - which it says provides sub-100m accuracy in all environments, rapid time-to-fix and costs less than $1 per handset to deploy.
Power semiconductor maker International Rectifier plans spend $40m on its wafer fab site in Newport, Wales, to double production capacity. This includes bringing on-line the processing of 200 mm wafers and the manufacture of high-voltage ICs. IR said the HVIC silicon produced on the 200-mm wafer line would be used for integrated motor controllers for industrial, appliance and automotive applications.
Alliance Semiconductor, a provider of memory and analog and mixed signal products, has announced it is planning to invest up to $50m in its India Design Centre over the next five years. Alliance will use the investment to expand its engineering and deployment services to further its market expansion.
Under an agreement with the Irish Development Authority, Intel plans to invest an additional $2 bn in its facilities in Ireland. The company plans to make this investment to enable 65 nm process technology and build Fab 24-2 on the Ireland campus.
All Computers of Toronto has filed a $500m lawsuit against Intel, claiming its Pentium processors infringe on a 1996 patent it holds. Founded in 1971 by Mers Kutt, All Computers says it holds a patent for the basic circuitry necessary for the operation of high-speed microprocessors, such as the Pentium processors in PCs. It claims that it pioneered the technology to make those computers process information more quickly.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will hold a meeting in Geneva on countering 'spam', in July at the International Conference Centre of Geneva (CICG). The annual loss in productivity due to unsolicited commercial communications (spam) is estimated to exceed $10 billion in Europe and the United States alone.
Cadence Design Systems has opened its first office in Moscow as the latest in a series of strategic investments in Russia. This is the first electronic design automation (EDA) research and development centre opened in Russia by an overseas company.
Hitachi High-Technologies of the UK has announced that the designer and manufacturer of its fingerprint sensor module has won first place in the third international Fingerprint Verification Competition. Hitachi markets the Suprema range of fingerprint solutions for embedded system applications. The competition is the world's largest evaluation of fingerprint matching technologies. 110 participants registered and 68 entrants finally submitted algorithms. Four different fingerprint databases with 3200 fingerprint images were used in the performance evaluation.
Technology
STMicroelectronics has revealed a new high-performance, secure MPEG-2 decoder intended for digital satellite set-top boxes (STBs). The new STi5100 integrated circuit will allow peripherals to be easily added to a low-cost STB in order to provide additional features and capabilities, it says. In particular, it allows consumers to purchase the STB and, at a later date, attach a hard disk drive to add DVR (digital video recorder) capabilities. It incorporates the Hi-Speed USB standard that operates at 480 Mbps.
MEMSense claims it has developed the world's smallest inertial measurement unit with its µIMU. It provides serial digital outputs of 3D acceleration, 3D rate-of-turn (gyro) and 3D earth-magnetic field data. Digital outputs can be configured to RS485, RS422, CAN 2.0B, SPI or I2C protocols. The µIMU is offered in a custom package measuring 58 mm diameter by 21 mm high.
Heralded as an industry breakthrough, 3M Touch Systems has developed a novel approach to touchscreen displays. Unlike other solutions that recognise touch by the interruption of electrical fields, acoustic waves, or infrared light, the company's 'Dispersive Signal Technology' recognises touch through vibrations made to the substrate. Sensors in each corner measure the vibrational energy and, through advanced digital signal processing, dispersion adjustment algorithms are applied to analyse the signals and report an accurate touch. The company claims that this approach helps eliminate issues with screen contaminants and surface scratches, while offering enhanced palm rejection.
Kopin's 4 mm CyberDisplay-equipped CyberView 113K EVF is featured in Royal Philips Electronics' new key019 Key Ring Camcorder. The key019 combines the capabilities of a digital camcorder, a 2-megapixel digital camera, an MP3 player and a 128-megabyte USB storage device in a product that fits on a key ring. It measures 88,9 mm tall, 30,5 mm wide and is less than 25,4 mm thick. Kopin's CyberDisplay 113K is said to be the world's smallest colour filter liquid crystal microdisplay.
The practical incandescent, electric light bulb is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. Contrary to popular belief, Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb, but rather, he improved on it. In 1879, using lower current electricity, a small, carbonised filament, and an improved vacuum inside the globe, he was able to produce a reliable long-lasting source of light. On October 21, 1879, the first commercially practical incandescent lamp completed a 40-hour duration test at Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory in New Jersey. In 1892, with the merging of the Edison General Electric Company and the Thomson-Houston Company, the General Electric Company was formed.
Getting it right
It has been brought to our attention that there was outdated information and a couple of inaccuracies in the article on Landis+Gyr in Dataweek 5 May 2004.
It was incorrectly stated that Siemens Metering was formed following Energy Measurements taking over responsibility for the Landis+Gyr range of credit meters and systems. The correct fact is that in 2002, Siemens consolidated its southern African metering activities into Energy Measurements following the 100% incorporation of the company into the Siemens group. This resulted in Energy Measurements taking over full responsibility for the Landis+Gyr and MTE product ranges. Subsequent to this, Siemens AG announced the sale of Siemens Metering to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR), a private equity company, with Siemens AG retaining 19% equity in the new organisation. This deal resulted in the renaming of Siemens Metering and Energy Measurements to Landis+Gyr.
Also, Landis+Gyr's installed base of Cashpower meters is now over 2 million, not 1,5 million.
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version