South Africa
Testerion successfully completed the installation of a TRI AOI machine at Vektronix in East London. This completes the company’s high-speed Fuji placement line which includes an MPM printer and Electrovert reflow machine.
ARB Holdings announced its interim financial results for the six months ended 31 December 2010. The group delivered strong results for the interim period, with revenue increasing 13% to R614,7 million, gross profit margin increasing to 18,7% and profit before tax climbing 7% to R55,3 million. In order to service the small electrical contractor and domestic market segments, ARB has launched the ‘ARB Connect’ chain of retail stores, the first two of which are expected to open on the second quarter of 2011.
Overseas
Business
Exar reported financial results for its fiscal 2011 third quarter ended 26 December 2010. Net sales were $35,4 million, compared to $37,2 million for the prior quarter and $33,9 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2010. GAAP net loss for the third quarter of fiscal 2011 was $5,0 million, or $0,11 net loss per share, compared to a net loss of $4,5 million, or $0,10 per share, in the prior quarter, and a net loss of $3,8 million, or $0,09 per share, for the third quarter of fiscal 2010.
Reporting financial results for the second quarter (ended 26 December 2010) of its fiscal year 2011, International Rectifier recorded revenue of $281,7 million, a slight increase from $280,9 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2011 and a 34,0% increase from $210.2 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2010. The company reported a net income of $43,9 million, or $0,62 per fully diluted share for the second quarter of fiscal year 2011, compared with net income of $33,5 million, or $0,47 per fully diluted share, in the first quarter of fiscal year 2011. For the second quarter of fiscal year 2010, it reported a net income of $28,3 million, or $0,39 per fully diluted share.
Atmel announced that revenues for its fourth quarter of 2010 were $457,8 million, a 3% increase compared to $444,3 million for the third quarter of 2010, and a 33% increase compared to $343,6 million for the fourth quarter of 2009. Net income, on a GAAP basis, totalled $223,1 million or $0,47 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2010. This compares to net income of $219,8 million or $0,47 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2010, and a net loss of $83,3 million or $0,18 per diluted share for the year-ago quarter. For the full year of 2010, net income was $423,1 million or $0,90 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $109,5 million or a loss of $0,24 per diluted share for 2009.
Altera announced third quarter sales of $527,5 million, up 12% from the second quarter of 2010 and up 84% from the third quarter of 2009. New product sales increased 24% sequentially. Third quarter net income was $217,5 million ($0,69 per diluted share) compared with net income of $180,6 million ($0,58 per diluted share) in the second quarter of 2010 and $56,7 million ($0.19 per diluted share) in the third quarter of 2009.
ARM Holdings announced unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended 31 December 2010. Revenue for the quarter was up 34% year-on-year to £113,9, while earnings per share were up 62% to 2,90 pence. Revenue for the year amounted to £406,6 million, an increase of 33%, and full-year earnings per share rose 71% to reach 9,34 pence.
Cree announced revenue of $257,0 million for its second quarter of fiscal 2011, ended 26 December 2010. This represents a 29% increase compared to revenue of $199,5 million reported for the second fiscal quarter last year and a 4% decrease compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2011. GAAP net income for the second quarter increased 47% year-over-year to $49,8 million, or $0,45 per diluted share, compared to $33,8 million, or $0,32 per diluted share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2010.
Cypress Semiconductor announced that GAAP revenue for the 2010 fourth quarter – which included a reduction of $6,3 million due to the accounting treatment for settling a long-standing civil antitrust lawsuit on SRAMs – was $220,3 million. The company recorded net income of $9,1 million in the 2010 fourth quarter, or diluted earnings per share of $0,05. This compares with last quarter’s diluted earnings per share of $0,18 and a diluted earnings per share in the year-ago fourth quarter of $0,02.
Companies
Agilent Technologies has acquired certain assets of A2 Technologies, including substantially all of its intellectual property, technology, employees and its spectroscopy product portfolio. Privately held A2 Technologies focuses on Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) technology for lab and field use.
Industry
A recent report from IMS Research forecasts that over 250 million RF4CE ICs (first launched in 2009) will be shipped in 2015. This growth will be driven by a strong transition in remote controls from infrared (IR) to radio frequency (RF), which can operate outside the line of sight and can offer bidirectional communication. There is also strong industry support for RF4CE in future remote control products. By 2015, annual shipments of RF4CE are forecast to be higher than those of other low-power wireless technologies using the IEEE 802.15.4 physical layer – such as ZigBee, WirelessHART, ISA100 and proprietary solutions.
Technology
Collaboration between researchers from Harvard University and Mitre Corp. has yielded the world’s first programmable nanoprocessor. Not only can these tiny nanocircuits, built from synthesised nanometer-scale components, perform a number of basic arithmetic and logical functions, but they can do so on a fraction of the power budget required by traditional transistors. This is because their component nanowires contain transistor switches that are non-volatile, meaning that, once they are programmed, they do not require any additional expenditure of electrical power for maintaining memory. This development is seen as a major milestone towards the realisation of legendary physicist Richard Feynman’s vision of a nanocomputer postulated more than
50 years ago.
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