Southern Africa
Altron reported headline earnings growth for the year ended 28 February 2007 of 51%. Altron reported an increase in revenue of 23% from R13,9 bn in the prior year to R17,1 bn and a rise in operating profit of 47% from R1,04 bn to R1,53 bn.
Philips recently exhibited at a Power and Electricity congress and exhibition at the Sandton Convention Centre, where new initiatives were presented from a host of corporations in a bid to conserve energy, whilst also promoting sustainable growth and development in the African power sector. Philips informed delegates on its energy-efficient product offering, which it says will aid in reducing CO² emissions being released into the environment, whilst conserving energy in South Africa.
Overseas
Business
In posting its results in the second quarter 2007, Siemens announced it successfully concluded its Fit4More program by achieving its profitability, growth and portfolio goals planned for April 2007. All Groups reached or exceeded their target earnings margins, it said. Group profit from operations rose 49% year-over-year, to 1,964 bn euros, income from continuing operations climbed 56%, to 1,396 bn euros, Net income rose 36%, to 1,259 bn euros, revenue rose 10% to 20,626 bn euros, and orders increased 9% to 23,469 bn euros.
Bluetooth and wireless chip specialist CSR increased sales in its first quarter of the year by 19%. Revenues were $160 m, while gross margin declined slightly to 45,1%.
Companies
Endwave, a provider of high frequency RF modules for telecoms networks, defence electronics and homeland security systems, has acquired ALC Microwave for approximately $6,6 m in cash. ALC is a provider of logarithmic amplifier subsystems to many US and international defence prime contractors.
In recent years Huber+Suhner has focused on the core business of 'Electrical and Optical Connectivity', and concentrated on the three areas of radio frequency, fiber-optic and low frequency technologies. This approach has proven to be very successful and will be adapted over the next few months. The group will split the present Fiberoptic + Cable Technology Sector into two separate sectors and from January 2008 Huber+Suhner will be organised into the three business Sectors of Radio Frequency Technology, Fiberoptic Technology and Low Frequency Technology.
NXP Semiconductors and DSP Group are combining their cordless and VoIP terminals businesses within DSP Group, to create a market leader in the cordless and VoIP residential telephony market. The transaction is expected to reach a total value of $345 m and will give NXP a shareholding of approximately 12% in DSP Group.
Tyco Electronics has announced a strategic alliance with OATSystems to provide a series of radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions to a variety of vertical markets that include aerospace and defence, transportation and industrial segments.
Anite, a leader in testing technology for the wireless industry, and Beceem Communications, a provider of chipsets for the mobile broadband market, have entered into a collaboration to enable customers to more effectively use their respective products.
Toko has entered into a licence agreement with Vishay, for the manufacture and sale of high-current, low-profile IHLP inductors. Toko will license certain inductor manufacturing technologies from Vishay.
Light Blue Optics (LBO), a leading developer of miniature projection systems, and aerospace and defence company, Thales, have announced a joint agreement to develop a range of display products for cockpit applications. LBO will provide Thales with engineering samples of its miniature projection system. LBO's patented holographic laser projection technology delivers full-colour video images that are in focus at all distances - even on curved or angled surfaces, the company said.
Industry
Forward Concepts has revised its forecast for market annual growth for all ICs in 2007 down to 3,5%. The firm's five-year DSP chip market forecast is based on its assumption of a pickup in WCDMA/UMTS cellular handset shipments. The DSP chip market will be worth $9,0 bn in 2007, $10,3 bn in 2008 and then $11,6 bn, $13,1 bn and $14,7 bn in the subsequent years, it said. That reflects 15% growth in 2008 and 12% CAGR over the period 2006 to 2011.
According to CCW Research of Beijing, China's radio frequency ID market will hit $335m in 2007, increasing more than 50% from last year. Similar increases are expected during the next three years. In 2006, tags accounted for 66,3% of the RFID market; RFID readers accounted for 19,5%; and software and services 14,2%, according to the research group.
The worldwide market for 'edutainment toys' will reach $7,3 bn by 2011, which could be a driver for the semiconductor sector, according to In-Stat. The 'edutainment market' is distinguished by new uses of existing technology typically found in mainstream consumer electronics products, In-Stat said.
The market for gallium arsenide semiconductor devices and circuits is expected to enjoy a 12% CAGR between 2006 and 2011, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, growing from $3 bn in 2006 to over $5 bn by 2011. Wireless applications are expected to drive the growth, accounting for 79% of total GaAs MMIC demand in 2011. Cellular handsets will remain the largest market for GaAs devices with Wi-Fi applications predicted to become the second largest market for GaAs components from 2007 onwards.
The Russian national standards body, the Russian Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology, has signed an historic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ASTM International, originally known as the American Society for Testing and Materials. The goals are to remove technical barriers in economic and trade relations, create greater efficiency in the development of standards, deliver greater quality products, provide environmental and labour safety, and recognise the mutual benefits to be derived from cooperation in the field of standardisation. Through the MoU, the Russian Federation joins 47 other countries that have also signed MoUs with ASTM International. As a result it will have access to the full collection of ASTM's 12 000 standards.
Intel has invested $20m in Jajah, a startup IP telephone calling company that offers a low-cost technique of telephoning over the Internet. The firm has hopes to embed its telephone technology in chips used in computers.
Agilent Technologies has been awarded a $94 m contract by the US Army Aviation and Missile Command Redstone Arsenal, where Agilent will deliver its AN/PRM-35 Radio Test Set over six years, beginning in 2008. The RTS is designed to test field radios in the harshest of environments. Part of the US Army's mission to improve the readiness and reduce operating and support costs of the Army's current and future systems, the contract, totalling up to 12 000 radio test sets, represents the single largest ever awarded in its category.
Nokia has become the first mobile phone maker to license the Moore Microprocessor Patent (MMP) portfolio from The TPL Group. Nokia is the sixteenth company to take a licence of the technology.
Maxim has announced it will stop developing certain standalone high-speed, high-resolution analog to digital converters. In particular, for a period of four years, Maxim will no longer develop standalone analog to digital converters having resolutions of 12 bits or higher and speeds of 65 MSPS and higher. This restriction does not include the use of A/D converters when embedded on the same die with a more comprehensive device, system or functionality, it said. Maxim said it arrived at this conclusion 'after observing that the standalone high-speed, high-resolution analog to digital converter market has limited available market size,' and that 'exiting the market helped avoid a costly trial by facilitating the settlement of an intellectual property dispute with Analog Devices.'
Fifty-three teams will advance to the next stage of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Urban Challenge competition for autonomous robot vehicles. In June, a safety evaluation will be based on navigating a test course including a four-way intersection and live traffic. The Urban Challenge, which will take place in November, will include merging into moving traffic, traffic circles, intersections, as well as avoiding obstacles.
Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, has unveiled its largest order ever: to supply handsets in China in a deal worth $2,5 bn. The order from China Postel could represent more than 20 million phones according to reports.
austriamicrosystems, a designer and manufacturer of high performance analog ICs, and NemeriX, a fabless semiconductor company specialising in ultra low power semiconductors and solutions for GPS and location-based services, have announced shipment of the five millionth NemeriX NJ1006A RF IC. The NJ1006A has been a major success for NemeriX in the personal navigation device and Bluetooth GPS markets, where small size and high sensitivity are paramount.
Credited with demonstrating the world's first working laser on 16 May 1960, Theodore H. Maiman passed away aged 79 on 5 May 2007, in Vancouver after a long illness. Maiman said he owed his achievement to a deep understanding of the properties of the material he used, synthetic ruby. Maiman called his invention 'ridiculously simple.' It comprised an off-the-shelf flash lamp teamed with a synthetic ruby crystal. The SPIE website at http://spie.org/x13999.xml has an excellent article on Dr Maiman called: 'Inventing the light fantastic: Ted Maiman and the world's first laser.'
Technology
Electronic paper display technology specialist, E Ink, has developed a higher performance 'electronic ink'. Dubbed Vizplex, the film has higher switching speed, peak switch speed and brightness than its existing displays. It will also be available in a much wider variety of display sizes and formats according to the company.
Samsung has introduced its second generation 'Ultramobile PC'. The latest Q1 Ultra offers longer battery life, a faster processor, and broader support for mobile technologies. Pricing starts at US$799, said the company. It features Intel's Ultra Mobile Processor running at 600 or 800 MHz, and also comes with 1 GB of system memory.
BlueSky Positioning of the UK has announced it has developed technology and processes to embed assisted global positioning system (A-GPS) capability into the sim card of mobile phones. The sim card will incorporate a GPS receiver and antenna, allowing location capability to be added to a device simply by changing the sim card. The A-GPS SIM is claimed to comply with GSM and 3G standards without modifications or additional software in handsets.
Zarlink Semiconductor has rolled out a wireless transceiver for medical implants that supports the Medical Implant Communication Service (MICS), approved by regulators in the US and Europe. Optimised for an emerging 400 MHz standard, the ZL70101 will help pave the way for a broader and easier to use class of implants that support broadband, automated communications. MICS is defined for the 402-405 MHz band, widely seen as providing reasonable signal propagation in the human body. The chip requires just three external components, excluding antenna matching devices.
At the recent 2007 Optical Fiber Conference, IBM revealed a prototype optical transceiver chipset capable of reaching speeds at least eight times faster than current optical components. The 160 Gbps chipset comprises a driver and receiver made in current cost-effective CMOS technology. It is then coupled with other necessary optical components made in more exotic materials, such as indium phosphide (InP) and gallium arsenide (GaAs), to make one integrated package only 3,25 by 5,25 mm in size.
Coding Technologies has developed a new professional broadcasting hardware/software solution based on MPEG Surround, that enables the contribution and distribution of high quality multichannel audio over existing stereo infrastructures. MPEG Surround is a recently ISO standardised, codec agnostic compression technique for delivering multichannel audio signals. In the new solution, MPEG Surround creates a stereo audio signal from a multichannel audio source, and a small set of parameters describing the original surround sound signal. In conjunction with a digital PCM stereo audio signal and a technique from Philips known as 'buried data' the MPEG Surround parameters are embedded into a fully backwards compatible PCM stereo audio signal, according to Coding Technologies.
Samsung's 76,5 gram SCH-r510 Wafer phone has been released to North American markets. The 8,4 mm thick mobile phone offers XM Radio and Axcess MobiTV streaming television service, and bundles software such as Axcess Mobile Guide and Axcess Search. It includes a 1,3 megapixel camera with video capture capabilities, an open memory slot, stereo Bluetooth headset ports and an MP3 player.
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