The market for analog is hot, said Brad Whitney, who joined IMP in January as president and chief executive in an attempt to turn the company around. It's going to be hot for a good while. When you look at some of the bigger companies that have made acquisitions in the analog space, it demonstrates that there are opportunities for guys like us to carve out a nice piece of business. The company began efforts to refocus on standard analog devices, specifically power-management ICs, and its first chips were introduced in 1998. The prior management team was focused on getting IMP into standard products, and in my view that's still the right approach, Whitney said.
Standard products can be very long-lived and very successful.
Bourns Inc. Previously, he was president and chief operating officer at Linfinity Microelectronics Inc., where he engineered the company's transformation from military to commercial analog-IC supplier. When I came to IMP, I wanted to continue the activities of the prior three months, reduce the drain on cash, maintain cost, and get the transaction with Teamasia consummated as quickly and as efficiently as possible, Whitney said. The Teamasia investment was crucial from a cash-balance point of view and has given us the money we needed to operate going forward, Whitney said. The company was cash starved ending the December quarter. One of the things I did when I came in was to re-emphasize the critical nature of our foundry business, Whitney said.