Overseas
Business
National Semiconductor reported sales of $398,5 million and net income of $79,2 million, or 33 cents per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010, which ended 30 May 2010. National’s fourth quarter sales were 10% higher than the third quarter of fiscal 2010, when the company reported $362 million in sales, and 42% higher than the $281 million reported in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009. Increased sales of National’s analog and power management products to the personal mobile device and industrial markets boosted revenues in the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter net income of $79,2 million, or 33 cents per diluted share, was an increase from the $53,2 million, or 22 cents per diluted share, in the third quarter of fiscal 2010. In last year’s fourth quarter, National reported a net loss of $63,7 million, or 28 cents per diluted share, which included $116,1 million of pre-tax charges primarily for severance and asset impairments related to a corporate restructuring.
Atmel has settled the remaining claims in long-running derivative litigation involving stock option backdating. The company had previously settled claims against a number of present and former employees, officers and directors. The latest settlement resolves claims asserted against the sole remaining defendant, the company's former general counsel. The settlement, which is subject to approval by the court, provides for a payment to Atmel by the company's insurers and for the dismissal of all remaining claims, resulting in a complete termination of the derivative litigation.
Agilent Technologies reported revenues of $1,27 billion for the second fiscal quarter ended 30 April, 16% above one year ago. Second quarter GAAP net income was $108 million, or $0,31 per diluted share. Last year's second quarter GAAP net loss was $101 million, or $0,29 per share. Second quarter electronic measurement revenues were up 18% from one year ago, rebounding to almost $700 million. Agilent's general purpose markets continued to strengthen, led by an overall improvement in the economy and demand in electronics and semiconductors.
Companies
ON Semiconductor has acquired privately held Sound Design Technologies (SDT) from an affiliate of Global Equity Capital, in an all cash transaction for initial consideration of approximately $22 million. The initial consideration value represents approximately one times SDT’s first quarter 2010 annualised sales levels. SDT designs and manufactures ultra-low-power semiconductor solutions for hearing aids and portable, battery-powered DSP applications, and a provider of advanced high density interconnect technologies used in custom miniaturised packages.
Synopsys has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Virage Logic. Virage’s offering will complement Synopsys' DesignWare interface and analog IP portfolio by adding embedded memories with test and repair, non-volatile memories (NVMs), standard cell libraries, and programmable cores for control and multimedia sub-systems. Under the terms of the agreement, Synopsys will pay $12,00 cash per Virage share, resulting in a transaction value of approximately $315 million, or approximately $289 million net of cash acquired.
Spectrum Control is to acquire the assets and assume certain liabilities of Sage Laboratories, which designs and manufactures custom RF and microwave components and subsystems including filters, diplexers, multiplexers, hybrids and digital frequency discriminators. The transaction is expected to close before the end of June for an undisclosed sum. Current annualised revenues of Sage Labs' products are approximately $12 million.
Broadcom has agreed to terms with the board of Innovision Research & Technology, to make an all-cash offer to acquire all of the issued and to be issued shares of Innovision. Innovision is a leader in near-field communication (NFC) technology. Under the terms of the offer, Innovision shareholders will receive £0,35 (approximately $0,52) per share in cash for each Innovision share held, representing a total equity value of approximately $47,5 million based on current exchange rates. This offer represents a 84,2% premium above the closing price of Innovision common stock on 17 June 2010. Broadcom expects to close the acquisition of Innovision in the third quarter of 2010.
EnOcean and Texas Instruments (TI) have announced the expansion of their cooperation to provide wireless solutions for building automation. Through this agreement, the companies will jointly create solutions enabling self-powered wireless sensor networks. To further optimise its product portfolio, EnOcean will integrate TI components in its energy-efficient wireless modules. EnOcean's batteryless wireless technology harvests energy from its surroundings – motion, light or differences in temperature – and enables ecologically minded self-powered wireless applications.
Altium and Aldec have signed an OEM agreement that adds Aldec's FPGA simulation capabilities to Altium Designer. This agreement provides seamless integration to industry proven VHDL and Verilog simulation from Aldec, tightly integrated within Altium Designer. Electronics designers can now access Aldec's simulation technology as part of Altium's unified electronics design architecture. Aldec's OEM simulator will be the default VHDL or Verilog FPGA simulation technology in the next release of Altium Designer, currently scheduled for release in the near future.
Industry
ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments have created the not-for-profit company, Linaro, committed to providing new resources and industry alignment for open source software developers using Linux on the world’s most sophisticated semiconductor system-on-chips (SoCs). Linaro will invest resources in open source projects that can then be used by Linux-based distributions such as Android, LiMo, MeeGo, Ubuntu and webOS. Linaro plans to provide a stable base for distributions and developers by creating new releases of optimised tools, kernel and middleware software validated for a wide range of SoCs, every six months.
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version