Archive : 23 August 2015 год

DMASS, the Distributors' and Manufacturers' Association of Semiconductor Specialists, says sales of semiconductors through distribution channels in Q2/CY15 grew by 16% to reach €1.86billion, a record quarter, although a significant part of the increase is provided by exchange rates. 

Georg Steinberger, DMASS; chairman, commented: "Although 16% sounds like a healthy increase, we have to keep in mind that not all of it comes from higher demand or organic growth, but from financial effects. We will see this effect weaken over the course of the year. Halfway through 2015, it seems clear that European distribution will enjoy a double-digit growth across the entire year, provided no massive macro effect will drive the second half into the corner. It remains to be seen how the European export is affected by the weakening of the Chinese expansion."

All major regions saw consumption increase, although sales in Germany were behind the average and Russian consumption shrank. In the UK, sales grew by 17% to €153m.

DMASS said there was a clear trend towards more complex components, with lower growth in demand for many commodity products. Amongst the product sectors, programmable logic sales grew by 26% to €150m, demand for memories rose by 16.3% to €143m, while analogue sales were said to be 15.3% up at €543m.

Meanwhile, DMASS says it has started to collect data on sales of passive and electromechanical components, as well as power supplies, but warns it may be some time before the information is published.

Author
Graham Pitcher

Source:  www.newelectronics.co.uk

Analogue and sensor specialist ams says it will create more than 1000 jobs and invest more than $2billion over the next 20 years to support the construction of a fab in New York state capable of running 200 and 300mm wafers. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring 2016. 

Chief operating officer Dr Thomas Stockmeier said: "Building a new wafer fab will help us achieve our growth plans and meet increasing demand for our advanced manufacturing nodes.

"Our decision to locate the facility in New York was motivated by the highly skilled workforce, the proximity to esteemed education and research institutions, and the favourable business environment provided by Governor Cuomo and the public and private partners we are working with on this important project."

Additionally, ams will collaborate with Fort Schuyler Management and SUNY Poly on a joint development program to support complementary research, commercialisation and workforce training.

The investment by ams is part of New York State's Computer Chip Commercialization Center – or Quad C – initiative at the Marcy campus (pictured). This is part of Nano Utica, a $1.5bn plan to establish a nanotechnology ecosystem.

GE Global Research will be the so called 'anchor tenant' at Quad C, building a power electronics packaging facility. Mark Little, GE's chief technology officer, said: "We are creating a silicon carbide corridor that will be the epicentre of the next revolution in power. In Utica, it will create the first US based power electronics manufacturing centre with GE's silicon carbide technology."

Pic: Aerial photo of the Marcy campus. credit: Xakuri

Author
Graham Pitcher

Source:  www.newelectronics.co.uk

Altium Limited has announced the acquisition of two electronic parts content and search providers, Octopart and Ciiva. This acquisition aims to expand the Altium product line-up to include an integrated content strategy for enhanced component management workflows.

"The acquisitions of Octopart and Ciiva represent a significant step forward in the evolution of the Altium content strategy," said Aram Mirkazemi, ceo at Altium. "Tightly integrated CAD models and part supply information will bring a state change to the way in which parts selection and component management are performed during and after the design process is completed."

The acquisition of Octopart allows Altium to expand their content offering for users of their PCB design tools. Altium customers will also benefit from Octopart's supplier database network, allowing designers to directly connect to electronic component distributors and manufacturers.

"We believe that everyone involved in the product development lifecycle can benefit from the bringing together of Altium content and design tool expertise with the Octopart data and search capabilities", said Sam Wurzel, Octopart co-founder and ceo.

Acquiring Ciiva will allow Altium to provide customers with an integrated parts management solution that enables engineers to overcome BOM and component data management challenges.

Leigh Gawne, co-founder and ceo at Ciiva, said: "Our vision to provide easy access to parts data and to help people overcome common component data management challenges will only be accelerated with our acquisition by Altium."

All services and solutions offered by Octopart and Ciiva will continue to operate as usual, with no changes for current customers. Altium will be working closely with Ciiva and Octopart in the coming months to integrate their existing technologies and data management platforms into the Altium ecosystem.

Pic: Altium's ceo Aram Mirkazemi

Author
Tom Austin-Morgan

Source:  www.newelectronics.co.uk

Looking to address the growing need for solar powered wireless sensors for IoT applications, Cypress has launched a family of energy harvesting power management integrated circuits that can be used with solar cells with capture areas as small as 1cm2.

The S6AE101A PMIC, the first device in the new family is integrated with the EZ-BLE PRoC module for Bluetooth Low Energy.

The devices are said to operate from a power supply of 1.2µW, which Cypress claims is four times lower than the nearest competitive device, whilst consuming as little as 250nA.

"The most compelling wireless sensor nodes that will drive IoT growth are self powered, can be deployed anywhere for more than 10 years and require minimal deployment and maintenance costs," said Kiyoe Nagaya, vice president of Cypress' analogue business unit. "[With this module], Cypress offers a complete solution that enables developers to create solar-powered WSNs for batteryless IoT devices."

Author
Graham Pitcher

Source:  www.newelectronics.co.uk