South Africa
New Events announced that National Electronics Week will return for its biennial Johannesburg appearance next year, but will ditch the Sandton Convention Centre in favour of Gallagher Estate. As with this year’s Cape Town event, the exhibition will enjoy the participation of local organisation ADEC, and will run alongside the FORTRONIC Lite event targeted at lighting and energy efficiency. The event will take place on 11 and 12 March 2014.
Lambda Test Equipment has moved into new premises in Block F of Apex Corporate Park, Quintin Brand Street, Persequor Technopark, Pretoria.
Overseas
Business
u-blox announced revenue for the first half of 2013 of CHF 105,1 million (approximately $116 million); this constitutes a 35,4% increase over the first half year of 2012. EBIT for the first half of 2013 was CHF 13,8 million, while net profit grew 36,8% to CHF 12,2 million. The company says its Asia Pacific sales experienced a strong growth of 56,8% and EMEA had a significant 41,7% sales increase. Revenue in the Americas grew by just 9,9% owing to the off-shore manufacturing trend of designs made in the USA during the period.
Companies
Molex has agreed to be acquired by private company Koch Industries, in a deal worth a total equity value of approximately $7,2 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Koch will acquire all of Molex’s outstanding shares for $38,50 per share in cash, with an expected closing period of the end of 2013. At the close of the transaction, Molex will become a standalone subsidiary of Koch Industries and will continue to be operated by the company’s current management team and will retain its name as well as its headquarters in Lisle, Illinois.
Analog Devices announced that it shipped the one-billionth channel of isolation based on its proprietary iCoupler digital isolator technology in September. The company invented iCoupler technology more than 10 years ago to eliminate the penalties associated with optocoupler-based isolation while still meeting rigorous safety standards.
ARM has acquired Sensinode, a provider of software technology for the Internet of things (IoT), which has led the creation of the 6LoWPAN and CoAP standards for low-cost, lowpower devices, and has been a key contributor to the IETF, ZigBee IP, ETSI and OMA standardisation efforts. ARM will continue the commercial offering of Sensinode’s NanoStack and NanoService products. ARM also acquired Cadence’s PANTA display controller core technology. The PANTA family of high-resolution display processor and scaling coprocessor IP cores was co-developed in conjunction with ARM and is targeted at advanced multimedia applications for high-end mobile devices with ultra-low-power consumption.
The USA’s Applied Materials, the largest global supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, has announced a merger with Japan’s Tokyo Electron, the third largest, to create a global powerhouse in semiconductor and display manufacturing technology via an all-stock transaction which values the new combined company at approximately $29 billion.
Industry
The Semiconductor Industry Association announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $25,53 billion for the month of July 2013, the highest total of 2013 and an increase of 5,1% over July 2012. Global sales in July were 2,6% higher than the previous month’s total of $24,88 billion. Regionally, July sales increased on a sequential monthly basis in Japan (7,9%), the Americas (5,4%), Asia Pacific (1,2%) and Europe (0,3%).
SEMI forecasts that capital expenditure for semiconductor fabrication equipment spending will increase to $39,8 billion in 2014, the highest on record. Semiconductor revenue has improved in 2013 compared to 2012 and early forecasts for 2014 project revenue growth averaging about 8%. Semiconductor companies have adjusted their capital expenditure accordingly, and the SEMI report tracks over 200 projects, with details revealing that fab equipment spending is expected to decline by 1% in 2013 (to $31,8 billion), but increase by 25% in 2014, including new, used and internally manufactured in-house equipment.
IC Insights has revealed that the continuous high growth in demand for QFN-type packages will help push the flatpack/chip carrier (FP/CC) category of packages past the ‘old’ small outline (SO) group of packages for the first time ever in 2013. Many companies have migrated from SO-type packages to QFNs and DFNs and their popularity continues to spread as new advancements make them capable of handling a greater amount of circuitry and functionality.
Technology
Engineers at The Technology Partnership (TTP) in the UK have discovered a way to break through the Faraday Cage that prevents the entry or escape of an electromagnetic field through a metallic enclosure. The company’s Fluxor method creates a ‘window’ for electromagnetic transmission of power and data by applying a strong DC magnetic field, which lines up the magnetic dipoles in the material to saturate a small area of the metal screen. This reduces the permeability and increases penetration to make it possible to transfer electromagnetic power and signals.
RFMD has introduced the world’s first 6-inch GaN-on-Silicon Carbide (SiC) wafers for manufacturing RF power transistors for both military and commercial use. GaN technology supports broad frequency bandwidths and high breakdown voltages in a small area. The company is converting all GaN production and development to 6-inch diameter wafers using its existing high-volume, 6-inch GaAs foundry to reduce platform cost for the growing GaN device market.
Altera and Micron Technology have jointly demonstrated successful interoperability between Altera Stratix V FPGAs and Micron’s Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC). This technology achievement enables system designers to evaluate the benefits of HMC with FPGAs and SoCs for next-generation communications and high-performance computing designs. The demonstration provides an early proof point that production support of HMC will be delivered with Altera’s Generation 10 portfolio, in alignment with market timing, and includes both Stratix 10 and Arria 10 FPGAs and SoCs.
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