Finance

The accumulation of unwanted inventory in electronics markets earlier this year appears to be very minor compared to recent inventory cycles. But beware: Inventory is hard to measure accurately across multiple links in the supply chain and across national boundaries. The inventory bulges that overlapped from 2000 to 2001 and again in 2002 to 2003 were initially reported in government ...

The electronics industry has a future in the UK but in a different form to that which companies have known in the past. This conclusion was reached at ‘The Future of the UK Electronics Industry: The Shape of Things to Come’ event held last week by industry body Intellect. It was based on the view that while volume manufacturing has ...

Industry body Intellect has hit out at a Government report which fails to use the IT sector as a key indicator of economic performance in the UK. “Intellect cannot understand how the Treasury has managed to overlook the importance of IT when our major competitors around the world recognise its impact on productivity,” said Beatrice Rogers, a senior programme manager ...

The University of Bath has room for engineers wanting to start-up commercial IC operations using its facilities, which include chip design tools and business contacts for getting venture capital funding, and help with finding customers. “We have space for 15 IC designers,” said Simon Bond, acting centre director for SETsquared, which is the name of the university’s high-tech incubator, “currently ...

STMicroelectronics has set up a design joint venture with a technology company associated with Shanghai Jiaotong University to address the Chinese digital TV market. The joint venture with Shanghai firm HDIC will be 65% owned by ST and will initially consist of about 20 people based in Shanghai. HDIC will contribute its existing TV middleware for the Chinese market as ...

Electronic News sat down to discuss design for manufacturability and whether the concept works with Len Perham, CEO of Optimal; Vincent Tong, v-p of product technology for Xilinx’s advanced products group; Walter Ng, senior director of design solutions at Chartered Semiconductor; and Graham Bell, senior director of marketing at Nassda. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. Electronic News: Who’s ...

Wolfson Microelectronics has trimmed its expectations for sales in the second half of the year as demand from its main consumer products end markets stutters in to the traditionally strong pre-Christmas period. The Edinburgh-based semiconductor supplier expects its second half revenues to be in the range $56m-$60m. This would equate to full year revenues of $113m-$117m, representing an annual growth ...

Chipmakers may argue that the industry is experiencing an inventory correction, but for chip equipment suppliers, it may be more of a cyclical downturn, if Gartner’s latest capital equipment spending forecast is accurate. The market research firm updated that forecast yesterday, noting that the capital equipment spending is on pace to grow 66 per cent his year. But it expects ...

A number of CEOs have expressed concern about a soft third quarter for semiconductor sales which has sent tech stocks sliding. Is the semiconductor downturn starting or is it just an inventory correction? “End product demand is still healthy but around $800m of excess inventory was accumulated in the first half at distributors and OEMs because people were expecting a ...

Kirk Pond, CEO of Fairchild Semiconductor, is on the prowl again for takeover targets in Japan and Europe in pursuit of Fairchild’s focus on power devices. Power devices now represent 75 per cent of the company’s sales revenues. “Europe is very important. It is the largest power market and our share is modest [3.5 per cent]. It is not something ...