AMETEK Acquires IntelliPower:
(Source) AMETEK announced on 2/5/20 that they have acquired IntelliPower, a leading provider of high-reliability, uninterruptible power systems (UPS). In addition to power systems, IntelliPower also makes external battery packs, power distribution units, and power conditioners. IntelliPower’s systems are used in a wide variety of defense and industrial applications and AMETEK plans to utilize their power solutions to broaden their technological capabilities and better serve the applicable market segments. The AMETEK Chairman and CEO, David A. Zapico, commented on the acquisition saying, “IntelliPower is an excellent acquisition for AMETEK and is a highly complementary fit with our Power Systems and Instruments Division.”
COVID-19 Coronavirus Outbreak:
(Source) Since the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the Chinese Coronavirus outbreak has rapidly spread and the electronics industry has been notably impacted. With over 80 thousand confirmed cases and over 2,700 lives lost, the novel Coronavirus, now officially named COVID-19, has and is continuing to cause mass disruption. Mandatory company shutdowns, decreased workforces and the extensions of the Lunar New Year holiday in China have affected the electronic and tech supply chains globally and component shortages are on the horizon.
ABB to close Hungarian plant – 1,000 jobs lost:
(Source) ABB, a prominent power and automation company, will be closing its production facility in Ozd, Hungary, but the end of the year. ABB has decided to close the factory due to a drop in demand from its customers. The factory currently manufactures miniature circuit breakers for ABB's electrification division. Though this closure will cause 1,000 jobs to be lost, ABB says the decision will not affect the group's other business operations in Hungary.
Intel Officially Axes Nervana:
(Source) Intel has decided to discontinue use of Nervana’s NNP-T and NNP-I training and inference chips and replaced them with Gaudi and Goya chips from Habana Labs, whom they acquired last month. Intel will no longer be using the Nervana chips except for pre-existing customer commitments and projects. Since the acquisition, Intel has been working towards making strategic updates to their data center AI acceleration road-map, planning to bolster Habana’s Gaudi and Goya devices with their AI hardware and software innovations. Intel has expressed confidence in this decision in a recent statement, saying, “The Habana product line offers the strong, strategic advantage of a unified, highly programmable architecture for both inference and training. By moving to a single hardware architecture and software stack for data center AI acceleration, our engineering teams can join forces and focus on delivering more innovation, faster to our customers.”
ON Semi looking to sell its manufacturing facility in Belgium:
(Source) ON Semiconductor might be selling its manufacturing facility in Oudenaarde, Belgium, in the near future.ON Semi is looking for strategic partners to enter a mutually beneficial arrangement, with intentions to facilitate an orderly transition of its products from its Oudenaarde facility to others within the company's network. As part of its efforts, the company plans to enter into a supply agreement under mutually agreeable terms. The 44,000 square meter Oudenaarde facility is currently an automotive-qualified facility, supports ON Semi’s low, medium and high voltage analog CMOS and BCD technologies and is an attractive semiconductor manufacturing asset because of its skilled workforce and its close proximity to Europe's automotive hub.
Intel and QuTech Unveil Details of First Cryogenic Quantum Computing Control Chip, ‘Horse Ridge’:
(Source) Intel Labs, in collaboration with QuTech, unveiled the details of their new cryogenic quantum control chip “Horse Ridge” in a research paper released at the 2020 International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco. The paper discusses key technical capabilities of the chip, addressing core challenges in building a quantum system powerful enough to demonstrate quantum practicality.The Horse Ridge chip, originally announced in December of last year, was created to greatly simplifiy today’s complex control electronics required to operate such a quantum system by using a highly integrated system-on-chip (SoC) for faster setup time, improved qubit performance and efficient scaling to larger qubit counts required for quantum computing to solve practical, real-world applications.
Nokia plans to acquire US-based company:
(Source) The Finnish telecom company, Nokia, is planning to acquire the U.S.-based silicon photonics technology company, Elenion Technologies this quarter. Elenion develops highly integrated, low-cost silicon photonics technologies for short-reach and high-performance optical interfaces. Sam Bucci, Head of Optical Networking at Nokia, believes that the technical expertise, design platform and services Elenion offers will aid in their market expansion, saying, “As a world-class provider of silicon photonics solutions, advanced packaging, and custom design services, Elenion provides a strong strategic fit for Nokia. Its solutions can be readily integrated into Nokia’s product offerings and address multiple high growth segments including 5G, cloud, and data center networking. When combined with Nokia, Elenion technologies will accelerate the growth and scale of Nokia’s optical networking business, while enabling us to cost-effectively address new markets.”
New Product Releases:
1. Marvell- New Device for Next-Generation Networking Infrastructure:
Marvell launched its new dual 400GbE (gigabit ethernet) MACsec PHY transceiver, with 256-bit encryption and Class C compliant precision time protocol (PTP) timestamping, on 02/04/2020. The new device incorporates Marvell’s industry-leading 56G PAM4 SerDes technology, IEEE 802.1AE 256-bit MACsec encryption, and highly accurate PTP timestamping. This innovative and comprehensive feature set enables network equipment manufacturers to deliver solutions with increased throughput, enhanced security and timing precision for hyperscale data center, edge, enterprise, and 5G infrastructure applications.
2. ON Semiconductor- New Family of Devices to Enhance Road Safety:
ON Semiconductor’s two new LED drivers, NCV7683 and NCV7685, enable multiple strings of LEDs to be driven with up to 100 mA per channel as they integrate twelve and eight linear programmable current sources. Both devices allow for daisy-chaining, control of illumination levels and sequencing and are intended to be used in automotive lighting.
3. Xilinx- Advanced Machine Learning Capabilities for Pro AV and Broadcast Platforms:
Xilinx announced a range of new and advanced machine learning (ML) capabilities for Xilinx devices targeted at the professional audio/video (Pro AV) and broadcast markets on 02/10/20. Additionally, Xilinx announced the industry's first demonstration of a programmable HDMI 2.1 implementation on its 7nm Versal™ devices. The intended purpose is to help customers reduce costs and future proof investments while keeping pace with new usage models and evolving industry standards.
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