Southern Africa
Clickatell has appointed Deon van Heerden, its former UK country manager, as the company's new South African country manager and vice president of sales for the Middle East and Africa. Van Heerden will enjoy the support of a 70 person strong local team, which includes Patrick Lawson who returns to his role as chief technology officer from his previous dual role as country head and CTO.
Spescom has announced an overall 44% increase in turnover for the six months ending 31 March, 2007, when compared to the same period last year. After taking foreign exchange losses into account the group reports a R0,1m operating profit, in contrast to the operating loss of R7,4m reported for the corresponding period last year. Headline earnings per share of 4,1 cents compare favourably with the headline loss of 15,7 cents per share, generated during the first half of the 2006 financial year.
South African researchers now have the advantage of using massive computing power in their quest for new knowledge and application. The Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), initiated by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), is hosted by the University of Cape Town (UCT) and managed by the Meraka Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and is making scientific 'supercomputing' a reality for South Africa. The high speed computational infrastructure compares with the performance of a few thousand standard desktop personal computers.
Unaudited results from electrical engineering and electronics group, Reunert, show that the company grew revenue by 19% to R4,6 billion in the first six months to 31 March 2007 compared to the same period in 2006. This resulted in a 16% increase in normalised headline earnings per share and an identical increase in dividend per share.
Local partners were lauded at American Power Conversion's (APC) recent annual partner awards in Barcelona, Spain. Amongst all of APC's Middle East and African (MEA) distributors, Diesel Electric Services was named 'Rookie of the Year' and Shane Rowan of Drive Control Corporation (DCC) won the 'MEA Product Manager of the Year 2006' award. In addition, Square One Power Solutions and Mustek Electronics both received MEA nominations for outstanding performances during 2006.
Overseas
Business
HP has announced financial results for its second fiscal quarter ended 30 April, 2007, with net revenue of $25,5 billion, representing growth of 13% year-over-year. GAAP operating profit was $2,1billion, or $0,65 earnings per share, up 27% year-over-year excluding a $0,15 tax settlement gain recorded in the prior year period. Non-GAAP operating profit was $2,3 billion, or $0,70 earnings per share, up 30% excluding the $0,15 tax settlement gain. Finally, a record cash flow from operations of $4,2 billion was reported.
RF Micro Devices has reported financial results for its fiscal 2007 fourth quarter ended March 31, 2007. Quarterly revenue grew approximately 13,9% year-over-year and declined approximately 8,5% sequentially to $257,3 million. Operating income totalled $21,4 million, on a GAAP basis, and $25,7 million, on a non-GAAP basis. The company stated that these quarterly results reflected unit volume strength at the world's leading handset manufacturers.
After three quarters of losses in the United States, Lenovo has announced that its US business turned a profit in its fiscal fourth quarter, with notebook shipments up 29% year over year. The company reported revenue of $3,4 billion for the quarter ended March 31, up 9% from $3,1 billion a year earlier. Lenovo posted a fourth-quarter profit of $60 million, compared with a loss of $116 million in the year-ago period.
Analog/mixed-signal foundry, X-Fab Silicon Foundries, increased revenues by just over 50% to $85,4 million in the first quarter of 2007 compared to the same period last year, due mainly to the expansion of its operations in Malaysia. The figures from the X-Fab Sarawak unit were only consolidated in September 2006, so compared to the fourth quarter of 2006 sales increased by approximately 11,5%. Net income for the first quarter was $6,8 million, an increase of 17,1% compared to the same period last year.
LG Electronics has moved to calm investor fears by predicting a sharp improvement in second-quarter earnings and possible signs of a turnaround in its plasma screen business within months. The world's No. 2 maker of plasma display panels (PDPs), is suffering from a glut of flat screens and plunged into a worse-than-expected loss in the first quarter, fanning speculation that it might sell the plasma unit. Plasma screens, which once dominated the 40-inch-and-larger TV market with cheaper price tags and technical advantages, have been pummelled in a price war with LCDs backed by larger production lines and economies of scale.
Chuck del Prado has been appointed chief executive officer of ASM International - a leading supplier of semiconductor process equipment - effective 1 March, 2008, when he is due to succeed his father Arthur del Prado. Arthur del Prado has served as ASM International's chief executive officer since he founded the company in 1968. Following his retirement, Arthur del Prado will continue to serve as senior advisor to ASMI on strategy and industry issues. Chuck del Prado, president and general manager of ASM America and a member of the management board, has been with ASM International since 2001.
Companies
NXP Semiconductors, the newly independent semiconductor company founded by Philips, and DSP Group have announced that they will combine their cordless and VoIP terminals businesses within DSP Group to create a market leader in the cordless and VoIP residential telephony market. The transaction could reach a total value of $345 million and will provide NXP with a shareholding of approximately 12% in DSP Group.
Fluke, manufacturer and supplier of portable, professional electronic test tools, has acquired DH Instruments, (DHI). DHI is a leading manufacturer of high performance pressure and gas flow standards, including calibration process software, who also offers A2LA accredited pressure and gas flow calibration services, as well as metrology training courses. Under the agreement, DHI will become part of the Fluke Precision Measurement division, joining the Fluke calibration product and service teams.
STMicroelectronics and Intel have announced a new joint venture for the development of NOR and NAND flash memory. The joint venture, as yet unnamed, will see 8000 employees move to headquarters in Switzerland, and will also encompass developments in chalcogenide phase-change memory.
Communications software company Aricent has bought, for an undisclosed sum, the cellular basestation development group of Nokia Siemens Networks located in England. The company will retain 100 of the software designers working on GSM and EDGE development at the R&D centre. The move is indicative of the shift to outsourcing many communications research functions both in the wireless and wireline sector. The group will initially focus on 2G and 2.5G base station technologies and products.
IC verification tool provider Axiom Design Automation has purchased SysChip Design Technologies, an Indian IC verification services and tools company. Along with additional R&D staff, the purchase adds SysChip's protocol coverage technology to Axiom's multiCPU MPSim simulator.
Industry
Processor intellectual property licensor, ARM Holdings, averaged royalties of $0,102 per handset sold in 2006 that it was present in, according to chief executive officer Warren East. Although the royalty rate ARM can levy has risen by 68% since 2002, when it was 6,1 cents, with the present pattern of slowing growth the royalty is unlikely to reach 11 cents, despite a tendency for ARM to have multiple cores in each handset. ARM has a penetration of around 80% to 90% in the mobile phone handset market
For the third consecutive year, the annual debugging survey, conducted at the Embedded Systems Conference in California, identified debugging as the most problematic and costly phase of the software development lifecycle, with more survey respondents than last year citing increased inaccessibility to silicon, lack of bug reproducibility and more pressure to meet shorter development schedule cycles. The survey highlights the need for innovative solutions that provide a more comprehensive development infrastructure than the traditional edit-compile-debug cycle. Survey respondents were developers and decision-makers in the embedded industry.
The lucrative signal conditioning IC market continues to attract new entrants, but the large analog suppliers dominate with the top five (Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, National Semiconductor, Maxim Integrated Products and Linear Technology) controlling 80% of the market. The global market has been estimated at $4,7 billion in 2006. With a compound annual growth rate of 10% over the next five years, the market is expected to reach close to $8 billion by 2012.
In the future, Messe München International, organiser of trade shows such as electronica and productronica, will be holding an event of its own in India. In August 2008 electronicIndia will be held at the newly opened Bangalore Exhibition Center (BIEC) for the first time. The new trade show centre offers state-of-the-art exhibition halls and infrastructure. electronicIndia will be presenting components, systems and applications for electronics and electronics manufacturing and will be held annually.
In the flat-panel display market, Samsung was the leader in terms of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2006 as well as for the entire year, according to iSuppli. LG.Philips came in at number 2 and number 3 was AU Optronics. This status quo was maintained in the first quarter of 2007.
Intel has announced that its future processors, beginning with its entire family of 45 nm, high-k and metal gate devices, are going 100% lead-free. This includes the next-generation Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Xeon processors. The company will begin 45 nm, high-k production in the second half of this year. In 2008, the company will also transition its 65-nm chipset products to 100% lead-free technology.
Technology
Samsung has developed an 8 Gigabyte microSD (secure digital) memory card, a size optimal for today's multimedia mobile phones. Featuring the highest capacity today for a microSD card, and with a read speed of 16 Megabytes per second and a write speed of 6 MBps, this fingernail-sized memory card well exceeds the Speed Class 4 SDHC (secure digital high capacity) standard which requires a data write speed of 4 MBps.
VIA Technologies recently showed off its VIA VT6047 Pico-ITX form factor reference design, the smallest full-featured x86 mainboard in the industry. Measuring just 10 cm x 7,2 cm, it literally fits into the palm of a hand.
The first series of standardised ICs in the electrical engineering industry, the 74 series, has been in use for decades, and has not seen any performance breakthroughs for many years, owing to the problem of noise. Now, Potato Semiconductor claims to have developed 74 series ICs that can run at five to seven times the speed of existing ICs (more than 1 GHz compared to about 150 MHz), thanks to patented technology.
NEC and its NEC LCD Technologies unit have developed a system-on-glass display that integrates on a substrate a 230-Kbit DRAM frame memory along with display transistors and peripheral circuits. NEC engineers said they plan to integrate all display circuits on a glass substrate. The prototype 1.1-inch display measures 160 by 120 pixels.
Stream Processors has rolled out what the company calls the industry's highest-performing digital signal processor (DSP). Dubbed the Storm-1 SP16HP, the device provides a cost-effective, C-programmable alternative to FPGA and multiDSP designs in digital imaging, video and wireless infrastructure applications. The SP16HP provides 112 GMACs (16-bit) or 448 GOPS (8-bit) of computing performance in a single chip with a power consumption of less than 0,1 mW per MMAC.
Nanoident Technologies has claimed to have delivered the world's largest printed semiconductor photodetector array on a flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) foil substrate. The array is 18 cm x 12 cm in size although Nanoident said it could produce detectors up to 50 cm x 50 cm in size. Applications for large-area photodetector arrays include industrial measurement and test, medical imaging and security screening, Nanoident said.
Samsung has unveiled what it claims is the world's thinnest active-matrix organic light emitting diode (AM-OLED) display module for mobile phones. The display uses low-temperature polysilicon technology. Samsung said its 0,52 mm thin, 2,2 inch AM-OLED module approaches the dimensions of a 1,7 mm TFT-LCD module considered to be the slimmest among the existing LCD modules available for mass production.
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