Layoffs at Sony – 200 to leave

Sony is not selling as many mobile phone as the company wants, and is therefore forced to layoff employees working at the company’s smartphone business in Lund, Sweden.

“Today we have announced a notice of 200 positions. I see it as they are at risk of being laid off, but hope there will be fewer. The goal is for all things to be negotiated and that the individuals are informed by March 2019”, said Stefan Andersson, location manager at Sony’s facility in Lund, to the Swedish local newspaper HD-Sydsvenskan on November 20th. Last fiscal year, Sony sold 13.5 million phones. The forecast for this year's telephone sales is approximately 7 million. “That is why there is a global 50 percent cost reduction for two financial years, linked to smartphones. It’s a combination of superfluity, efficiency and integration with Sony's other business”, said Stefan Andersson. In addition to the 200 employees, a number of consultants will also be affected by the cut.

JEOL Ltd. , manufacturer of semiconductor equipment and other industrial instruments and equipment, announced the acquisition of Integrated Dynamic Electron Solutions Inc. (IDES), an entrepreneurial venture specializing in technologies related to transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

NEXT Biometrics has received an order for UIDAI and STQC certified fingerprint biometric readers in India with a value of USD 750,000.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. has completed the acquisition of AWR Corporation from National Instruments Corporation.

A new competitor in the industry for electric vehicles are in the making.

Sponsored content by Evertiq New Media AB

Evertiq is continuing on its growth path. The rapid growth of recent years, both in terms of turnover and employee numbers, will now be followed by accompanying structural set-up of the company.

Collins Aerospace Systems has signed a contract with Lockheed Martin to provide critical subsystems to support production of NASA’s Orion spacecraft fleet for Artemis missions III through VIII.

Imagination Technologies has opened a new design centre in Timisoara, Romania. The centre will focus on IP designed for artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision.

As part of the further integration into the Schurter Group, AKI Electronic spol. s r.o. changes its name to SCHURTER Electronics spol. s r.o.

Automotive semiconductor company, Silicon Mobility, has appointed former Robert Bosch GmbH executive Rainer Kallenbach as CEO of the company as of January 6, 2020. The current CEO Bruno Paucard will remain with the company as COO and on the Board of Directors.

NEXT Biometrics says it is executing a program to optimise the organisation and cost base with its strategic priorities and market opportunities; which also translates to layoffs

In December, LPKF delivered – for the first time – a highly automated version of its LIDE system for integration into a semiconductor fab to an unnamed semiconductor manufacturers.