Southern Africa
For the fourth year in a row, Grintek has announced excellent results. Headline earnings for the year ended 30 June 2001 increased by 43% to R115,3m. The group's operations generated R188,4m cash of which R143,9m was absorbed by an increase in working capital. The management of working capital remains a key driver of the business, said Grintek. Capital expenditure amounted to R37,2m (2000: R44,5 million). According to Sybrand Grobbelaar, Grintek MD, there was a marked increase in the Group's business during the last quarter. This resulted in an increase of R235m in receivables compared to that of the previous financial year, which he said should be cleared within contracted periods. The increase of R83m in inventory resulted from the higher level of business activity in the defence division, as well as a build-up of merchandise to satisfy telecommunication orders received in the last month of the financial year.
Spescom has entered into a licensing agreement with network operator BT, to globally market network termination products. Under the terms of the 10-year deal, Spescom will exploit international market opportunities for the jointly developed technology. BT will provide specialist technical back-up and support.
A privately-owned radio and telecommunications supplier, claimed to be the largest in South Africa, has been born through the acquisition by Vertel of Trans Africa Telecommunication Networks (TATN), Specialised Radio Systems (SRS) and Swaziland-based SEREC Radio. All are now wholly-owned subsidiaries of Vertel.
The NER has initiated a process by which it intends to revise the manner in which power quality is addressed in South African regulatory practices. The principal aims of the process are to develop a comprehensive position paper on SA power quality management issues and will be used to develop an NER directive on power quality. The NER has constituted a Power Quality Advisory Committee to provide direct and ongoing input to the process. Parties interested in registering as participants in this consultation process can do so from 4 September to 7 October on the NER website: www.ner.org.za. All submissions received before 21 October 2001 will be included in the position paper. It will be made available to the public in November 2001.
A South African product development portal developed by the CSIR's National Product Development Centre (NPDC) has been officially launched at www.productdevelopment.co.za. The interactive tool provides information on the full new product development process, and gives direct access to expertise and resources supporting competitive product development. Aimed at product developers and inventors, the site has topical and relevant content, enhanced by easy navigation and effective search functionality, and provides links to local and international resources. It is a joint initiative of the CSIR and the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology.
CST Electronics and Analog Data Products have announced that Analog Data Products will now be representing Analog Devices in South Africa. Analog Data Products is a division of the MB Technologies group and will be managed by Stephen Silberman. It will be based at Technology Park, Maree Street, Bramley Park - tel: (011) 531 1400, fax: (011) 531 1410. Analog Data Products will be able to focus strongly on Analog Devices and give its customers comprehensive technical and sales assistance said Silberman. "Most people in South Africa see Analog Devices as a supplier of ADCs, DACs, amplifiers and DSPs," he said. "Of course Analog Devices is very strong in these areas, but what is not widely known is that they also make an excellent range of CPU supervisors, linear and switching regulators, RS232, RS485, digital pots and many other components. Analog Data Products intends to raise awareness of the comprehensive range that Analog Devices offer."
SDD and HP have cemented their partnership with a view to improving service to their dealer base. Steven Kramer has been appointed as General Manager of the HP business unit at SDD. He says, "We want the market to view SDD as HP and vice versa." SDD, the only distributor in South Africa to stock the entire range of HP products, has taken several steps to improve the value that dealers get when working with them. These include the appointment of a technical expert to provide dealers with skills support, the teaming of a marketing and sales rep. with the technician in order to offer a value-added customer service to the dealer, giving dealers access to the Team HP website ( www.teamHP.co.za) with a link to the DealerWeb for the latest drivers and software updates.
Technique Electronics has officially received the ISO 9001:2000 certification at a function on 17 August held at its premises in Roodepoort. The certificate was handed over by Dr N. Stutterheim on behalf of DEKRA-ITS certification services.
Please note Wiltron Agencies' fax number is shown incorrectly in its advertisement in the Electronics Buyers' Guide 2002. Wiltron Agencies' fax number is (012) 244 0224 and telephone number is (012) 244 0222.
Overseas
Business
RF Micro Devices has upped its revenue forecast for its current second fiscal quarter, ending September, to 30% sequential growth. RFMD said it expects revenues to reach $91m, and its financial results will be at break-even in the current quarter. It said revenues will be higher than expected because of stronger demand for microwave monolithic integrated circuits (MMICs) and modules.
On Semiconductor has announced a $100m investment from Texas Pacific Group. OnSemi has been battling with the severe chip industry downturn. The company reportedly also has nearly $1,3 bn of long-term debt. In addition to backing On Semiconductor's $1,6 bn management buyout in 1999, Texas Pacific Group is also the company's majority stockholder.
Companies
Sony and Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson have announced that their respective Boards have approved their Mobile Phone Joint Venture. During meetings in Stockholm, the Board of Directors of both parent companies confirmed that the new company, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, will start operations on 1 October 2001, subject to necessary approvals from regulators.
Oki Electric Industry's semiconductor division has partnered with Intersil to develop wireless and analog coder-decoder (CODEC) and subscriber line interface circuit (SLIC) chip solutions. Oki says it has released a dual-channel voice CODEC device for voice signals, the ML7033, that seamlessly interfaces with Intersil's RSLIC18 family of SLIC. The ML7033 covers a 300-to-3400 Hz signal range for voice using a single power supply and this also allows for generation of a wide range of tones.
Intel and Hewlett-Packard recently announced that the Intel StrongARM processor will power the new HP Jornada 560 personal digital assistant (PDA) series. The newest member of the HP Jornada family will also use Intel's StrataFlash memory to provide high-performance memory capabilities. The two companies said they also plan to work together to bring voice communication and next-generation wireless applications to upcoming HP handheld products.
Fairchild has partnered with Saifun Semiconductors in Israel to develop, manufacture and market next-generation EEPROM-based products using Saifun's patented NROM technology. NROM memory technology allows storage of two physical bits per cell. The NROM cell size is six times smaller than any other electrically-erasable PROM cell, according to Saifun. Its endurance and retention characteristics are claimed to be equal to or better than the conventional EEPROM technology.
SanDisk and Sony have signed a cooperation agreement involving the Memory Stick. Under the agreement, Sony will supply SanDisk with Memory Stick media that SanDisk will resell under its own brand through its retail channel. SanDisk will also supply a portion of Sony's NAND flash memory requirements. The two companies also agreed to jointly develop, separately manufacture and sell the next generation of Memory Stick that will incorporate advanced features such as significantly higher performance and storage capacities.
Industry
Worldwide chip sales plunged 37,2% to $10,86 bn in July from $17,29 bn in the month last year, reported the Semiconductor Industry Association. The SIA said July semiconductor sales, based on a three-month moving average, dropped 6,1% from $1,57 bn in June. For the Americas, semiconductor revenues dropped 51,2% to $2,70 bn in July. This compares to $5,54 bn for the year-ago period. Chip sales in Europe suffered in July with a 34% drop on a year-to-year basis and a 9,8% decline by month. In Japan semiconductor sales dropped 28,6% to $2,78 bn from $3,89 bn in the month last year, and revenues fell 4,9% from $2,92 bn in June, it said. The world's largest chip market, the Asia Pacific region, dropped 29,7% to $3,11 bn compared to $4,42 bn in July 2000. Here chip sales slipped 3,5% in July from June. "Recent reports suggest that inventory reduction accelerated in the second quarter of 2001," said George Scalise, SIA President. "This, combined with improving order levels, supports our view that the inventory correction will be largely completed in the third quarter."
Semico Research has released a new forecast in which it predicts that despite the current communications business downturn, the market for custom and specialty packet-processing devices used in networking applications could grow by as much as 63,2% in 2002. It says the shift towards higher-speed networks will propel the demand for several new types of chips, especially content addressable memories (CAMs), network processors, and communications-oriented ASICs. The CAM-oriented chip market is projected to jump 63,2% this year, from $143m in 2001, to $389m in 2002, and by 2005, will reach $4,7bn. Semico said it expects the network processor market to grow by 46,9% this year, from $217m in 2001, to $409m in 2002. By 2005, the network processor market will hit $3,3bn. The ASIC market will show growth with the communications-oriented ASIC business projected to grow 38,9% from $586m in 2001, to $959m in 2002, and will reach $6,5bn by 2005, according to the analyst group.
Xilinx, along with 21 providers of soft IP cores have announced the SignOnce IP License, a first-ever industry initiative designed to break bottlenecks created by the FPGA IP core licensing process. Also announced was the formation of the Common License Consortium, currently consisting of Xilinx and members of its AllianceCORE third-party IP provider program. According to Xilinx, the consortium and the SignOnce IP License provide customers with a single set of licensing terms to streamline access to over 450 IP cores for FPGAs from multiple core providers. The license releases FPGA designers from a legally intensive licensing process that can exceed 6 months. Complete program and membership information is offered at www.xilinx.com/ipcenter/signonce.htm
Intel has made it official that the desktop Pentium III processor is being discontinued, with the last orders accepted on 7 December 2001.
Technology
NextComm, a chip start-up backed by Taiwan's Via Technologies and First International Computer (FIC) has announced a new security technology for wireless LANs. NextComm revealed a technology called 'Key-hopping technology' which it claims can vastly improve the security for the 802.11a and 802.11b standards in WLANs. The system is based on the same technology used in secure credit card authentications over the Internet.
US-based researchers from the University of Maryland have made a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) that operates at 1,55 µm, giving a power output above 1 mW at 20°C. Intended for telecoms applications the researchers said they are pushing towards VCSELs that work at the longer wavelengths for use in telecoms applications on single-mode fibres.
Infineon Technologies has rolled out its reduced-size dual-channel codec/SLIC chipset DuSLIC (dual channel subscriber line interface concepts). Offering a rich feature set, the highly integrated chipset requires only 32% of the board space consumed by comparable chipsets, according to the manufacturer. The 3,3 V chipset consists of two 7x7 mm, 48-pin, copper lead frame SLIC packages and a 12x12 mm TQFP codec package. The devices are suited for high-density network access platforms and customer premises equipment in VoIP and VoDSL applications. This is of particular interest to developers and engineers already involved in the infrastructure technology that will be required by the proposed future 'fixed/mobile' line operator in South Africa when Telkom is deregulated next year, said the company.
Samsung Electronics has begun to produce its new 16 bit RISC-based processor for smartcard applications in production volumes. The company hopes to become the world's largest supplier of smartcard chips by 2005. The 16 bit ClamRISC central processing unit has an option for 32 or 64 KB of EEPROM, 128 KB of mask-programmed ROM, and 4 KB of RAM. It is aimed at smartcard data storage, computation and security systems, such as wireless communications, e-commerce, and transportation applications, said Samsung.
On Semiconductor is to introduce a range of space-saving chip packages, called MicroLeadless, which the company says takes up one-fourth the area of leaded surface-mount products. The company intends to introduce two-pin and three-pin versions of the MicroLeadless package. These will be as small as 1,0 by 0,6 mm for diodes and transistor products. Versions with up to six pins will come in 1,45 by 1,00 mm package, which is 65% smaller than an existing SC-70 package, and packages with eight or more pins will take up 2,0 by 2,0 mm for more complex ICs.
Toshiba's US semiconductor group has launched a series of power chips based on a third-generation trench cell technology. It claims that this speeds devices while reducing on-resistance in circuits by up to 25% compared to existing products. The company's new U-MOS III technology and packaging solutions are claimed to be among the thinnest surface-mount solutions current available. The new trench cell technology was developed for power management switching, lithium-ion battery protection circuits and synchronous rectification at the secondary portion of DC-DC converters. The technology results in an on-resistance of 7 mOhm at 10 V, said the company.
Researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the US Military Academy are developing one of the world's fastest FPGAs making use of IBM silicon germanium BiCMOS process technologies. These FPGAs will be capable of supporting reconfigurable computing at gigahertz clock frequencies. The researchers presented a paper at the field-programmable logic and applications conference in Belfast in September. The high-speed FPGAs use the fast heterojunction bipolar transistor present within SiGe process technology. Commercial FPGAs typically operate from 70 to 250 MHz.
Fairchild Semiconductor has announced development of a unique optically isolated error amplifier, which incorporates a reference voltage circuit and optocoupler inside an 8-pin SOIC. Intended for use in isolated AC to DC power supplies and DC to DC converters, the device provides 2500 V r.m.s. isolation, according to Fairchild. The reference voltage is 1,24 V with a ±1% tolerance, the current transfer ratio (CTR) range is 100 to 200%, and it operates from -40 to +85°C.
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