South Africa
The Comtest Group, Fluke’s authorised test and measurement distributor for southern Africa, is offering customers a 20% discount when trading in older models and purchasing newer models of ScopeMeters and process calibrators. This special offer is valid until 13th December 2012 for process calibrators and 31st March 2013 for ScopeMeters.
Overseas
Business
Micron Technology announced results of operations for its fourth quarter and 2012 fiscal year, which ended 30 August 2012. For the fourth quarter, the company had a net loss attributable to Micron shareholders of $243 million, or $0,24 per diluted share, on net sales of $2,0 billion. For the 2012 fiscal year, the company had a net loss of $1,03 billion, or $1,04 per diluted share, on net sales of $8,2 billion. The results for fiscal 2012 compare to net income of $167 million, or $0,17 per diluted share, on net sales of $8,8 billion for the 2011 fiscal year.
Companies
Farnell element14 has become an authorised reseller for TE Connectivity’s (TE) recently acquired DEUTSCH non-industrial and commercial transportation brand of connector products. This expands Farnell’s position as TE’s largest global high service distributor and will see over 83 000 products being added to its global product portfolio, particularly in the military, aerospace, industrial and rail transportation product segments.
Atmel has completed the sale of its serial Flash memory product lines to privately-held Adesto Technologies Corporation. Terms were not disclosed. The transaction covers the Atmel AT45XXX (Data Flash) and AT25XXX (BIOS Flash) product families and employee teams supporting those products. To help ensure a smooth customer transition, Atmel has agreed to provide transition services to Adesto. Atmel has retained its Serial EEPROM, Crypto and Digital Temperature Sensor memory product lines and plans to continue to invest in those businesses.
After more than one unsuccessful bid by Cypress Semiconductor to acquire Ramtron, the companies have finally entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Cypress will acquire all outstanding stock of Ramtron at a price of $3,10 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $109,8 million.
Industry
Due to their ubiquitous nature, power management chips are seen as a good bellwether of general semiconductor industry health. Databeans projects that the global power management semiconductor market will decline slightly from 2011 to 2012, although shipment volumes should increase slightly. As shown in the graph below, both sales and units are expected to rebound starting in 2013, and continue to increase in subsequent years.
The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) has joined the oneM2M Partnership, which was launched in July 2012 to enable the deployment of services in machine-to-machine (M2M) communications systems. Seven major communications organisations launched the oneM2M Partnership: the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) and the Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC) of Japan; the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) of the USA; the China Communications Standards Association (CCSA); the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI); and the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) of Korea.
According to an IHS iSuppli report, outsourced manufacturers in 2011 were responsible for 87,5% of electronic consumer tablet production. That number is expected to increase to 89,2% this year and beyond as brands seek to minimise operational risks and reduce costs.
Technology
Microsemi has teamed with Emcraft Systems, a provider of microcontroller-based hardware and software solutions, to deliver a miniaturised system-on-module (SOM) for embedded applications. The new SOM features Microsemi’s SmartFusion customisable system-on-chip (cSoC) solution, as well as pre-loaded, royalty-free uClinux in a 30 x 57 mm package. The cSoC integrates an FPGA, ARM Cortex-M3 processor and programmable analog on a single chip. The uClinux kernel and applications execute on the 100 MHz 32-bit ARM core, while the integrated SmartFusion peripherals, FPGA fabric and programmable analog blocks are used to implement various communication interfaces and protocols.
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