South Africa
• Microsemi has extended its distribution agreement with ASIC Design Services, a leading distributor of electronic components and EDA software based in Midrand, to include products from all Microsemi divisions, with the exception of those from the Sync Systems division. Microsemi has acquired several companies in recent years including Actel, PMC Sierra, Vitesse Semiconductor, Symmetricom and Zarlink. These products, as well as traditional products developed by Microsemi, are now available in South Africa through ASIC Design Services.
• RS Components has signed a distribution agreement with XP Power, a leading provider of AC-DC power supplies and DC-DC converters, and now stocks around 2500 product lines from the manufacturer. The new XP offering available via RS meets the needs of a wide range of market sectors and applications, including healthcare, industrial, technology, avionics and railway.
Overseas
Business
• Texas Instruments reported third-quarter revenue of $3,68 billion, net income of $968 million and earnings per share of 94 cents. These figures compare to revenue of $3,43 billion, net income of $798 million and earnings per share of 76 cents in the third quarter of 2015. The company also increased its quarterly dividend by 32% to 50 cents per share, or $2,00 annualised.
• Revenue for the third quarter of NXP Semiconductors’ fiscal 2016 was $2,47 billion, an increase of 62% year on year, an increase of 4% versus the prior quarter and essentially in-line with the midpoint of its guidance. High-performance mixed-signal segment revenue grew 80% year on year to reach $2.1 billion, while standard product segment revenue decreased 2% year on year to $320 million.
• Silicon Labs established a new revenue record in its third quarter of 2016, exceeding the high end of guidance at $178,1 million, up from $174,9 million in the second quarter. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) were $0,47 based on net income of $20,02 million, compared to diluted EPS in the third quarter of 2015 of $0,23 based on net income of $9,98 million.
• For the third quarter of 2016, ams reported group revenues of 146,7 million Euros, up 11% sequentially compared to the second quarter and decreasing 4% from the same quarter in 2015. The net result for the third quarter was 55,9 million Euros compared to 34,0 million Euros in the same period last year. Diluted earnings per share were 0,81 Euros, compared to 0,47 Euros for the third quarter of 2015.
• Cypress Semiconductor reported third quarter revenue of $523,8 million and announced that it achieved $175,8 million in realised annualised synergies from its merger with Spansion last year, remaining ahead of its plan. It posted net income of $9,41 million, or $0,03 per diluted share, for the most recent quarter. Earlier in the quarter, it was reported that the company would be laying off 500 employees at a cost (for severance and related charges) of $40 million to $50 million, to be borne primarily in the third and fourth fiscal quarters of 2016.
• Maxim Integrated Products garnered net revenues of $561 million for its first quarter of fiscal 2017 ended 24 September 2016, a 1% decrease from the $566 million revenue recorded in the prior quarter, and flat from the same quarter of last year. Diluted EPS in the September quarter was $0,48, compared to $0,32 in the preceding quarter and a diluted loss per share of $0,25 in the first quarter of fiscal 2016.
Companies
• Following weeks of speculation, it was announced that Qualcomm will launch a tender offer, through a subsidiary, to acquire NXP Semiconductors. The offer will be for all of the issued and outstanding common shares of NXP at $110,00 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of roughly $47 billion. The merger is expected to grow Qualcomm’s serviceable addressable markets by ~40% to $138 billion in 2020, and be significantly accretive to non-GAAP earnings immediately upon close.
• ams has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of the shares in Heptagon, the worldwide leader in high-performance optical packaging and micro-optics. The purchase price comprises an upfront consideration of approximately $570 million, plus an earn-out clause contingent on future results of Heptagon’s business over fiscal year 2017, with a potential maximum value of $285 million.
• Analog Devices announced the acquisition of Innovasic, a leading provider of deterministic Ethernet semiconductor and software solutions. The acquisition adds a suite of multiprotocol industrial Ethernet solutions and key enabling technologies to Analog Devices’ Smart Automation Solutions portfolio for industrial automation and industrial Internet of Things (IoT).
• Murata Electronics Europe has acquired IPDiA, a 3D silicon capacitor technology pioneer headquartered in France. IPDiA is a leading manufacturer of integrated passive devices, whose technology has been adopted by world leaders in medical and high-reliability electronics. IPDiA will be integrated into Murata, and its products and solutions will be commercialised as part of Murata’s product portfolio.
• Samtec announced the acquisition of nMode Solutions – a developer of innovative components through advanced 3D packaging technology for next generation wireless communications products – and its subsidiary, Triton Microtechnologies. Utilising Triton’s patented Glass Core technology, nMode designers use the superior performance and material characteristics of glass to achieve miniaturisation and integration beyond what is possible with organic materials.
• Through its recently announced acquisition of Micrium, Silicon Labs aims to help simplify IoT design for all developers by combining Micrium’s leading, commercial-grade embedded RTOS with its own IoT expertise and solutions.Micrium’s RTOS and software tools will continue to be available to all silicon partners worldwide, giving customers a wide range of options, even when using non-Silicon Labs hardware. Micrium will continue to fully support existing as well as new customers.
Industry
• Asia-Pacific’s grip as the dominant market for IC sales is forecast to strengthen in 2016, with the region expected to account for 61% of the $282 billion IC market this year, based on analysis published by IC Insights. The Asia-Pacific region is particularly dominant with regard to IC market share in the communications and computer categories, and to a lesser extent in the consumer and industrial categories. In 2016, IC Insights expects the Asia-Pacific region to surpass Europe and become the largest region for automotive ICs for the first time, as China continues to account for a large and growing portion of new car shipments. That will leave only the government/military end use segment where Asia-Pacific does not have top IC market share – a condition that is forecast to hold through 2019.
• IDTechEx Research has produced a report analysing supercapacitor technologies and markets through 2026, hailing supercapacitors as an emerging energy storage technology that will take a key role in the future of energy systems. While lithium-ion batteries are increasingly capturing the market of other battery technologies, they are unable to compete with supercapacitor technology in terms of power and number of cycles. With steady progress, supercapacitors are gaining traction in markets such as automotive and rail sectors, and opening new possibilities in emerging sectors such as grid energy storage. The report estimates that the high-power energy storage market will grow to $2 billion a year by 2026, up from about $240 million currently, and that supercapacitors could capture about $800 million to $1 billion of that potential market opportunity.
• The Semiconductor Industry Association announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $28,0 billion for the month of August 2016, an increase of 3,5% compared to the previous month’s total and an uptick of 0,5% over the August 2015 total. August marked the market’s largest month-to-month growth since May 2013 and its first year-to-year growth since June 2015. Month-to-month sales increased across all regions, while year-to-year sales increased in China and Japan but fell in Asia Pacific/All Other, the Americas (-3.1 percent) and Europe.
• Ultra-wideband (UWB) indoor location technology is on the cusp of substantial market growth. ABI Research forecasts that there is huge opportunity for the high-accuracy, low-cost UWB radio technology in industrial and IoT markets, with total real-time location system (RTLS)/asset tracking revenues to reach $15 billion by 2021. Not only will UWB disrupt the existing market, it will also open up new opportunities around compliance, traceability, fleet management, pallet tracking, staff management, fulfilment and inventory management. The major competitive threat stems from Bluetooth; while it comes with a range of cost/accuracy trade-offs, its major advantage is its easy integration with smartphones and industrial wearables.
Technology
• The Architects of Modern Power (AMP Group) consortium announced an additional standard aimed at establishing common mechanical and electrical specifications for the development of advanced power conversion technology for distributed power systems. The gigaAMP standard, introduced to provide a higher current option in a land-grid array (LGA) footprint, builds on the previously-released picoAMP standard, published in September 2015, which defined standards for a lower range of non-isolated platforms ranging from 6 A to 18 A. The 60 A gigaAMP standard defines a compact footprint of 25,1 x 14,1 mm in an LGA format.
• ARM has released its most comprehensive product suite ever, aimed at providing a complete ecosystem for IoT development from the chip to the cloud. At the ARM TechCon conference in October, the company unveiled new processors, radio technology, subsystems, end-to-end security and a cloud-based services platform developed to deliver new levels of security, efficiency, low-power connectivity and device lifecycle management for the Internet of Things.
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