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fter spinning off its memory unit, Germany’s Infineon Technologies AG said that it plans to expand its silicon foundry services.
The move is somewhat expected. Late last year,, Infineon (Munich) entered the foundry market with the aid of its French affiliate, Altis Semiconductor SA, according to first customer — Toumaz Technology Ltd. Infineon has initially focused on specialized manufacturing processes: RF-CMOS, bipolar and silicon-germanium, and high-frequency applications.


Infineon achieved positive EBIT in the second quarter after four quarters of losses. EBIT increased significantly to Euro 28 million from an EBIT loss of Euro 122 million in the prior quarter, primarily due to a return to positive EBIT in the Memory Products segment and improved EBIT in the Automotive, Industrial and Multimarket segment.
· Second quarter revenues increased strongly to Euro 1.99 billion, up 19 percent sequentially, reflecting significantly higher sales in the Memory Products and the Automotive, Industrial and Multimarket segments.
· Net loss in the second quarter was Euro 26 million compared to a net loss of Euro 183 million in the prior quarter.
· Total revenues for the first half of the 2006 financial year were Euro 3.67 billion, up 7 percent from Euro 3.42 billion in the same period last year. EBIT in the first half of the 2006 financial year was negative Euro 94 million, a decrease from positive Euro 94 million in the same period last year.

LONDON — Ember Europe is to double in size of its Cambridge IC design facility by the end of 2006, as aprt of its development partnership with STMicroelectronics.
Ember's 11-strong hardware design team has already developed two ICs at the site - including a single chip solution integrating both radio and microcontroller. The company is now finalizing the specifications for several new IC programs with STMicroelectronics, and actively recruiting digital and analogue engineers for the development phases.
"We expect the UK design centre to be at least 20 strong by the end of 2006", said Nick Horne, Director of IC Engineering at Ember Europe.
"Wireless-enabling sensors demands such an extreme combination of price and performance that we expect to set a new standard of innovation, one that could offer a model of economy for the other more performance-oriented wireless schemes for some time to come," added Horne.
Ember Europe is looking for ways to cut the number of external components usually required to build a radio, at the use of fine geometry semiconductor fabrication processes in a way that does not degrade radio performance, obtaining high radio sensitivity in close proximity to high clock rate digital circuits, and optimising operating modes and power management schemes to suit ultra-long lifetime operation from battery power.
"At the moment, we have more opportunities than engineers. The right staff have ample chance not only to exploit their core skill of digital or analogue circuit design, but also to get involved with the wider mixed-signal IC team to integrate the various circuit elements, to verify and test the design, and bring the complete solution to market," said Horne.
In March 2004 Cambridge Consultants sold its portfolio of 802.15.4 radio frequency (RF) integrated circuit technology to Ember Corporation of Boston which has also hired the engineering team that developed it.

L'enquête téléphonique du mois de mars 2006, portant sur les facturations des fabricants de semiconducteurs (circuits intégrés et semiconducteurs discrets) installés en France et adhérents du SITELESC, affiche une forte croissance sur le mois de février de 21% qui en fait la plus élevée depuis septembre dernier.
Ces résultats sont encourageants. Ainsi les trois premiers mois affichent une progression de plus de 9% par rapport à la même période 2005.
Plus encore, le premier trimestre est en progression de près de 4% par rapport au dernier trimestre 2005 traditionnellement élevé.
Un dernier point positif c'est le fait que cette progression se reflète à la fois sur le marché France et à l'Export.
Cette bonne tendance est principalement le reflet de la santé des circuits intégrés.
Les commandes sont également en hausse comparées à février et le premier trimestre est d'un niveau équivalent à celui du même trimestre 2005.
Ces résultats sont en ligne avec la tendance mondiale confirmée par la hausse du taux d'utilisation des capacités de production en mars.

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