South Africa
The South African Renewable Energy Council (SAREC) has been launched as an umbrella body for all renewable energy industry associations in South Africa, with founder members including SAPVIA (solar power), SASTELA (solar thermal power), SESSA (sustainable energy) and SAWEA (wind energy). SAREC is presently filming a documentary on the socio-economic and community benefits of renewable energy.
Reunert’s normalised headline earnings per share for the six months ended 31 March 2014 decreased by 8% from 256,5 cents to 237,2 cents. Revenue from continuing operations increased by 14% to R3,7 billion, whilst operating profit increased from R449,2 million to R477,2 million. Basic earnings per share and headline earnings per share from continuing operations increased by 3% to 200,9 cents and 201,3 cents respectively.
Overseas
Business
Avago Technologies announced financial results for the second quarter of its fiscal year 2014, ended 4 May. Net revenue was $701 million, a decrease of 1% compared with the previous quarter but an increase of 25% from the same quarter last year. Net income was $158 million, or $0,61 per diluted share. This compares with net income of $134 million, or $0,53 per diluted share, for the prior quarter, and net income of $113 million, or $0,45 per diluted share, in the same quarter last year.
Analog Devices reported revenue of $695 million for the second quarter of its fiscal 2014, up 11% sequentially and 5% year-over-year. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) were $0,59 on the back of net income of $187 433. The company projects its revenue increasing further in the next quarter, by 1% to 5%, resulting in diluted EPS of $0,60 to $0,64.
Companies
u-blox announced the acquisition of connectBlue, an established provider of industrial-grade short range radio modules for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The acquisition entails purchase of 100% of the shares of connectBlue for an enterprise value of CHF25 million. For the acquired business u-blox expects revenue of around CHF9 million and an EBIT of CHF1 million for the remainder of 2014.
Osram has opened a new LED assembly plant in Wuxi, China, which has a floor area of 100 000 square metres and will employ as many as 2100 people by 2017. The investment is valued in the "low three-digit-million Euro" range, according to the company. Osram views this as a way of not only expanding its fully loaded backend LED capacities but also boosting its presence in the world’s largest single lighting market.
Avago Technologies announced that it has completed its acquisition of LSI Corporation for $11,15 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $6,6 billion. At the time of this announcement, the company boasted that this acquisition creates a highly diversified semiconductor market leader with approximately $5 billion in projected annual revenues, but just three weeks later it sold the assets of LSI’s Accelerated Solutions Division and Flash Components Division to hard drive maker Seagate Technology for $450 million in cash.
Hamamatsu Photonics has finished work on a new building at its main factory for the development and mass production of MOEMS (micro opto-electromechanical system)-based devices and modules. The advanced products to be made at the facility starting September will be for automotive use, smartphones and various other applications.
Bel Fuse is set to acquire Emerson’s Network Power Connectivity Solutions (ECS) business. Emerson has accepted Bel’s offer of approximately $98 million in cash to acquire the ECS business, which had 2013 revenue of approximately $83 million. ECS is a leading provider of high-performance RF/microwave and harsh environment optical connectors and assemblies for military, aerospace, wireless communications, data communications, broadcast and industrial applications.
The next company on Microchip’s shopping list – Taiwanese provider of low-power Bluetooth and advanced wireless solutions for the Internet Of Things (IoT) market, ISSC Technologies Corporation – is considering an acquisition offer to the tune of US$328,5 million made by Microchip.
Industry
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $26,34 billion for the month of April 2014, an increase of 11,5% from the April 2013 total of $23,62 billion and a slight uptick of 0,7% compared to the previous month’s total of $26,15 billion. The SIA also endorsed the WSTS Spring 2014 global semiconductor sales forecast, which projects the industry’s worldwide sales will reach $325,4 billion in 2014, a 6,5% increase from the 2013 sales total.
Imagination Technologies is bringing together the likes of Broadcom, Cavium, Ikanos, Ineda Systems, Ingenic Semiconductor, Lantiq, Nevales Networks, PMC, Qualcomm and others to create prpl (pronounced ‘purple’) – an open-source, non-profit foundation targeting and supporting the MIPS architecture. In so doing, it hopes to promote the efficiency of the MIPS architecture and its unique features in areas such as hardware multi-threading, 32/64-bit compatibility and hardware virtualisation. Initially targeting data centre, networking, digital home and embedded/IoT, Imagination intends to leverage prpl to bring together under one roof open-source projects based on the MIPS processor community and make accessible the latest free, unencumbered tool chains, associated libraries, common platform, debuggers, probes and software, and build environments for all users of MIPS.
Technology
Researchers at Vanderbilt’s Nanomaterials and Energy Devices Laboratory have developed technology that allows electronic devices to store energy in their own structural material. This opens up the possibility that the casing or chassis of smartphones, laptop computers and even electric vehicles of the future may also serve as their power source. Building on what amounts to supercapacitor technology, the team has already demonstrated silicon-based devices with impressive mechanical strength.
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version