South Africa
TRX Electronics, which is partnered with TTI and Mouser, now has a permanent representative based in Durban in the form of Pieter Wolmarans, who was previously based in the company’s Gauteng office. He can be contacted on +27 (0)31 561 1930 or pieter@trxe.com.
Reunert recently released unaudited group results and cash dividend declaration for the six months ended 31 March 2013. Normalised headline earnings per share declined by 14% from 298 cents to 257 cents while revenue reduced by 8% to R5,3 billion from R5,7 billion. This decrease was predominantly in the CBI Electric and Nashua segments.
Eskom has been granted a licence for its Sere, Western Cape wind farm by the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa). The R2,4 billion project should start delivering power to the national grid in the first half of next year, with full operation by the end of 2014. Located near Koekenaap, the wind farm is expected to generate up to 100 MW of power for the national grid and avoid nearly 4,7 million tons of carbon emissions over 20 years.
Overseas
Business
Analog Devices reported revenue of $659,3 million for the second quarter of its fiscal 2013, which is 6% up from the previous quarter but 2% down compared to the second quarter of 2012. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) were $0,52 on net income of $164,5 million, compared to EPS of $0,42 and net income of $131,2 million in the prior quarter, and EPS of $0,53 and net income of $162,9 million in the prior quarter.
Agilent Technologies reported orders of $1,69 billion, down 8% compared with one year ago, and revenues of $1,73 billion for the second fiscal quarter ended 30 April, flat with last year. Second-quarter GAAP net income was $166 million, or $0,48 per share, compared with last year’s second-quarter GAAP net income of $255 million, or $0,72 per share.
Companies
Microchip Technology recently shipped its 12 billionth PIC microcontroller (MCU), roughly 10 months after delivering its 11 billionth. The milestone unit was delivered to Japan’s Nidec Corporation, a supplier of precision motors.
Industry
The European Commission has launched a campaign seeking public investment in micro- and nano-electronics (such as semiconductors and computer chips), with the aim of expanding Europe’s advanced manufacturing base. Two of the stated goals of this initiative are to produce more chips in Europe than in the United States, and to double Europe’s chip production to account for 20% of global production. Ten billion Euros in private, regional, national and EU funds will be channelled into the project over the next seven years.
The Ethernet standard celebrated its 40th birthday on the 22nd of May, as it was on that day in 1983 that IEEE 802.3 was first published as a draft. Initially developed in order to standardise connectivity among computers, printers, servers and other devices inside a local area network (LAN), the standard has steadily evolved to deliver increased capacities and connect more devices, users, media and protocols across more types of networks.
The Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) announced a working group project with Volkswagen to establish an energy efficiency benchmark for microcontrollers aimed at making automotive end products more energy aware and more robust. The new benchmark suite includes tests to measure CPU performance while simultaneously monitoring peripherals and energy usage and is supported by 11 top-tier semiconductor vendors including Freescale, Fujitsu, Infineon, Microchip, NXP, Renesas, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.
Technology
Samsung announced that it has successfully tested fifth-generation (5G) wireless data technology running at a speed of 1 Gigabyte per second over a distance of 2 kilometres. It operates in the millimetre-wave Ka band at a frequency of 28 GHz using an adaptive array transceiver with 64 antenna elements. The company plans to commercialise the technology, which it says will “provide data transmission up to several hundred times faster than current 4G networks”, by 2020.
STMicroelectronics has developed an enhanced MOSFET gate structure to provide what the company claims is the best conducting efficiency among currently available 80 V and 100 V devices, while switching efficiency is also increased. Available in new STripFET VII DeepGATE devices, the technology also delivers high avalanche ruggedness to survive potentially damaging hard conditions, which makes it a strong choice for automotive applications.
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