Plessey High Brightness LEDs – MAGIC

Plessey has signed a distribution agreement with CODICO of Perchtoldsdorf, Austria.

With CODICO, Plessey will be expanding its European network with coverage in Central and East European, Italian and Danish market for its GaN-on-Si LED products.

‘We are convinced that the innovative technology of Plessey and CODICO’s deep knowledge of the market will enable both companies to turn on a bright light within the solid state lighting market,” says CODICO CEO Sven Krumpel, “GaN-on-Si technology is going to be the next revolution in the lighting field and that Plessey and CODICO will be driving it.”

“Plessey is very pleased to work with a distributor that has a wide coverage in the region. CODICO’s line card complements the Plessey LED portfolio in the lighting segment and together with its focused team that brings considerable knowledge of the lighting industry and customer base, will accelerate the time to market for Plessey GaN-on-Si LEDs in the region” says Plessey’s David Owen.

Plessey’s MaGIC (Manufactured on GaN-on-Si I/C) High Brightness LED (HBLED) technology cuts the cost of LED lighting by using standard silicon manufacturing techniques (pictured).

Atmel is to buy WiFi and low-power Bluetooth IC specialist Newport Media for $140 million.

“This acquisition immediately adds 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to our offerings and will accelerate our introduction of low-energy Bluetooth products,” says Atmel CEO Steve Laub, “combined with our existing Wi-Fi and Zigbee solutions and industry leading microcontroller portfolio, Atmel is positioned for substantial growth in the Internet of Things marketplace.”

Last year, Newport had revenues of $43 million.

If certain financial targets are achieved, another $30 million will be added to the purchase price.

The acquisition follows the recent trend for semiconductor industry M&A. This year, RF Micro has bought Triquint, Analog Devices bought Hittite Microwave, Qualcomm bought Wilocity, EZchip bought Tilera, AMS and Dialog are talking merger and CSR has sold its Israeli imaging unit to Qualcomm.

M/A-COM has announced a family of eight new baluns for CATV MoCA applications.

“This family has been designed specifically for customers requiring a transformer balun for wired broadband applications,” says M/A-COM’s Graham Board, “the family enables customers to design a broad range of applications of different frequency ranges using a diverse range of impedances. These baluns offer high current handling in a small outline package with less than 3.8 x 3.8 mm in size on average”.

These baluns are available on Tape and Reel and can be assembled using surface mount capability. They are all RoHS compliant, lead-free, compatible with a 260°C reflow temperature and most can be used in either 75 Ω or 50 Ω systems.

Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron have named their jv Eteris.

The name is, says the two companies ‘derived from the concept of eternal innovation for society’.

The name is pronounced: “eh-TAIR-iss”.

The companies have also created a logo for Eteris.

In May, 99% of the shares voted at the Applied Materials stockholder meeting and 95% of the shares voting at the Tokyo Electron stockholder meeting voted to agree the merger.

Orbotech CEO Asher Levy

SPTS of Newport, the packaging and MEMS specialist, is to be bought by the US equipment manufacturer Orbotech for $370 million in cash, $300 million of which will be raised through debt.

In 2014, SPTS is expected to generate revenues of approximately $180 million, gross margin of approximately 48% of its revenues, and EBITDA margin of approximately 25% of its revenues.

“Orbotech identified Advanced Packaging as a strategic and natural extension of its business into an adjacent high growth market, where SPTS is a recognised technology leader,” says Orbotech CEO Asher Levy.

Post-completion, SPTS Technologies will operate as a standalone division of Orbotech and continue to base the Single Wafer division out of Newport, with the Thermal Products division in San Jose and HF Etch Products division in Allentown, US.

Silego SLG59M1563V

Silego has introduced another member of its GreenFET3 load switch product line. The SLG59M1563V has an RDSON of 22.5 mΩ. It supports up to 2.5 A continuous current, reverse blocking, and is packaged in a 1.0 x1.6 mm STDFN package.

The load switch includes a power good output, integrated discharge, and over-temperature protection.

“Reverse blocking is a feature in some Silego load switches. Reverse blocking removes the current path if the device is reverse-biased,” says Silego’s Jay Li, “this is useful for battery powered applications to protect the system from current flowing in the wrong direction. Resolving this problem with discrete components requires two power MOSFETs, each typically larger than one device from Silego.”

Load switches are used to switch power rails while controlling surge currents at turn-on with linear ramps and reducing leakage on power rails when the system is off or hibernating.

These devices also replace the larger power MOSFETs and their associated control circuitry, often at the same cost and with lower RDSON.

Target Applications include: Smartphone Power Rail Switching; Tablet Power Rail Switching;
Notebook Power Rail Switching