Oracle Utilities solutions enable utility to cut billing process by more than 80 percent.
Rewards
How many people ever get to say: “Revenue for the quarter was $50.6 billion, which was within our guidance range.” The CEOs of a handful of oil companies, the CEOs of Wal-Mart, Samsung, Toyota and, until recently, VW and Warren Buffett – and that’s about it. But these particular words reflectd disappointment – Q1 2015 …
Room temperature solder uses an odd state of matter
US researchers have used under-cooled liquid metal – liquid below its freezing point – for soldering wires together at room-temperature. The project started in Iowa State University as a search for a way to stop liquid metal from returning to a solid below the metal’s melting point. Lead by Martin Thuo (below), the research team …
Manufacturer invests in specialist high voltage production
AWS Electronics has added a high voltage production capability to its plant in Newcastle Under Lyme. The electronics manufacturing services company, which is investing £30k in the facility, now has a manufacturing space purely for work that requires up to 50kV; high currents of up to 180A can also be accommodated. The most likely customers for the high voltage …
CambridgeIC wins Queen’s Award
CambridgeIC has won the Queen’s Award for International Trade for growth in international sales over the last three years, which have increased by 120%. Here is Electronics Weekly’s list of winners The firm makes ICs for inductive angle and position sensing. “We are delighted and honoured to receive this award in recognition of our overseas …
Optimism over Q2
The semiconductor industry is beginning to accept that Q2 will be a good quarter. ST sees a possible 5.5% revenue increase in Q2 and UMC has forecast a 5% increase. According to Digitimes UMC sees utilisation riding to 87/89% in Q2 from 82% in Q1, and ASPs rise 1-2%. “Looking into second-quarter 2016, new product …
Apple reports declining iPhone sales
Apple’s seemingly relentless march to ever increasing sales has halted according to its latest quarterly figures. It’s fiscal 2016 second quarter (ending March 26) saw a 14% drop in quarterly sales of $50.56bn, down from $58bn last year. This represents the first fall in sales since 2003. Apple’s quarterly profits fell 22% from $13.5bn to $10.5bn. In …
Fable: The Company Which Took Too Long
24 years ago a company set up to make a roll-up OLED screen. Two private equity firms, Hilman and Kelso, in vested $133 million. Intel and others put in VC money. Philips and Uniax bought licences. Twelve years after founding, in 2004, it had an IPO on the NASDAQ which valued the company at $230 …
sodium potassium alloy
I didn’t realise that together sodium and potassium make low-melting point alloys. And that they have been used to cool all sorts of things, including spacecraft, atomic reactors and even PCs – the latter in the form of the LMX Superleggera heatsink assembly from Danamics, which looks to have gone bust. And, according to the ever-delightful Wikipedia, …
Cypress to aqcuire Broadcom’s IoT wireless business
Cypress Semiconductor has agreed to acquire Broadcom’s wireless product business aimed at internet of things markets in an all-cash transaction valued at $550m. This means Cypress will acquire Broadcom’s Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee IoT product lines and intellectual property, along with its WICED brand and developer ecosystem. The IoT business employs approximately 430 people and generated $189m in …