Source: http://www.filingwatch.com/2009/02/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 06:06:45+00:00

Document:
IP revenue growth: "Intellectual property revenues for the year ended December 31, 2008 were $221.9 million as compared to $161.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2007, which represented an increase of $60.7 million, or 38%. The increase is primarily attributed to higher royalties reported on strong shipments, a favorable royalty pricing adjustment in the first quarter of 2008 from one of our current licensees, a favorable royalty adjustment in the third quarter of 2008 resulting from self-audits, option fees received from a defendant in an ITC infringement case, and higher license revenue primarily related to imaging and optics technologies."
Patent foundation: "As of February 20, 2009, our intellectual property portfolio included 595 issued U.S. patents and 275 issued international patents. In addition, we have 328 domestic and 363 international patent applications. Our patents have expiration dates ranging from March 9, 2010 to August 10, 2027. In 2008, 106 U.S. standard or provisional patent applications were filed, along with 69 international patent applications. We continually file new patent applications for new developments in our technology."
Employees: "As of January 31, 2009, we had 417 employees, with 39 in sales, marketing and licensing, 281 in research and development (including employees who perform engineering, assembly and infrastructure services under our service agreements with third parties) and 97 in general administration, including general management, information technology, finance and accounting."
Tessera, Inc. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. et al.
Tessera, Inc. v. Amkor Technology, Inc.
Tessera, Inc. v. A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd., et al.
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc., ASE Test Limited, and ASE (U.S.) Inc. v. Tessera, Inc.
Additionally, there are numerous patent re-examination actions listed not detailed here.
Foundry and assembly: "Most of our devices are currently fabricated using standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor process technology with 0.08 micron (typo?) to 0.18 micron feature sizes........Our primary foundry is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, which has manufactured integrated circuits for us since 1987. TSMC and Tower Semiconductor Ltd. are currently manufacturing our DVD, DTV, imaging and mobile products. LSI Corporation is providing turn-key manufacturing for one high-end laser-printer product. Our independent foundries fabricate products for other companies and may also produce products of their own design. Most of our semiconductor products are currently being assembled by one of two independent contractors and tested by those contractors or other independent contractors. Our primary services company for assembly and testing is Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc."
Employees: "As of December 31, 2008, we had 1,411 employees, including 634 employees primarily involved in research and development activities, 616 in marketing and sales, 128 in finance, human resources, information systems, legal and administration, and 33 in manufacturing control and quality assurance. We had 488 employees based in Israel, primarily involved in engineering and research and development, 203 employees at our facility in Sunnyvale, California and 142 employees at our facility in Burlington Massachusetts. We have 327 employees in our China office."
Employees: "As of December 31, 2008, we employed a total of 3,067 employees, of which 2,215 of our employees were in Asia, 269 were in the United States and 583 were in Europe."
Relationship with Lite-On: "Lite-On Semiconductor Corporation and its subsidiaries and affiliates (“LSC”). LSC is our largest stockholder, owning approximately 20.2% of our outstanding Common Stock as of December 31, 2008, and is a member of the Lite-On Group of companies. C.H. Chen, our former President and Chief Executive Officer, and Vice Chairman of our Board of Directors, is also Vice Chairman of LSC. M.K. Lu, a member of our Board of Directors until May 2007, was President of LSC. In addition, Raymond Soong, the Chairman of our Board of Directors, is Chairman of LSC, and is the Chairman of Lite-On Technology Corporation, a significant shareholder of LSC.......We sold silicon wafers to LSC totaling 6.5%, 6.2% and 3.5% of total sales for the years ended December 31, 2006, 2007 and 2008, respectively, making LSC our largest customer."
Recent litigation activity: "On November 25, 2008, Integrated Discrete Devices, LLC (“IDD”) filed a complaint for patent infringement against the Company in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware (the “Court”).........alleging that the Company has been and is infringing, actively inducing others to infringe, or contributing to the infringement of IDD’s United States Patent No. 5,825,079........On January 23, 2009, the Company filed an answer and counterclaims to IDD’s complaint. "
Growth in Programmable System-on-Chip (“PSoC®”): "Cypress grew its PSoC customer base by 42% in fiscal 2008 to approximately 8,800 customers."
Employees: "As of December 28, 2008, we had approximately 4,100 employees worldwide. Geographically, approximately 1,500 employees were located in the Philippines, 1,700 employees were located in the United States and 900 employees were located in other countries. Of the total employees, approximately 2,300 employees were associated with manufacturing, 800 employees were associated with research and development, and 1,000 employees were associated with selling, general and administrative functions."
Patent foundation and forecast: "As of the end of fiscal 2008, we had approximately 1,600 issued patents and approximately 1,200 additional patent applications on file domestically and internationally. In addition, in fiscal 2009, we are preparing to file up to 120 new patent applications in the United States and 20 foreign applications in countries such as China, Taiwan, Korea and India."
Relationships with Grace Semiconductor (foundry): "In December 2005, Cypress entered into a strategic foundry partnership with Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (“Grace”), located in Shanghai, China. Under the terms of the agreement, Cypress transferred certain of its proprietary process technologies to Grace and provides additional production capacity to augment output from Cypress’s manufacturing facilities. During fiscal 2006 and 2007, Cypress completed the transfer of its 0.35-micron SONOS, 0.13-micron SRAM and LOGIC processes and began purchasing products from Grace that were manufactured using these processes........As of December 28, 2008, we were continuing to serve as guarantor for approximately $32.4 million in lease payments due by Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, a strategic foundry of Cypress. In conjunction with the master lease agreement, we have entered into a series of guarantees with a financing company for the benefit of Grace. If Grace fails to pay any of the quarterly rental payments, we will be obligated to pay such outstanding amounts within 10 days of a written demand from the financing company. If we fail to pay such amount, interest will accrue at a rate of 9% per annum on any unpaid amounts. To date, we have not been required to make any payments under these guarantees. However, if Grace were to default on the leases, it could have a negative impact on our financial position and results of operations."
No bonus: "......no incentive cash bonus payouts to the Company’s executive officers with respect to the fourth fiscal quarter and fiscal year ended December 28, 2008"
No pay increases: "On February 20, 2009, the Committee approved management’s recommendation that there would be no salary increases for any of the Company’s executive officers for fiscal year 2009. This would be the second consecutive year that the Committee has approved management’s recommendation that there should be no changes to annual base salary for executive officers."
Pay cuts: On February 24, 2009, the Company announced a world-wide (subject to local legal restrictions) base salary reduction plan to be effective at the beginning of the Company’s second fiscal quarter of 2009. All applicable employees, including executive officers, will be subject to a reduction in base salary based on a sliding scale. In connection with this plan, executive officers will have their base salary reduced by a scale between 9% and 11%."
Employees: "As of December 31, 2008, we had approximately 200 employees in our engineering departments, representing 60% of our total employees. A significant number of our engineers spend all or a portion of their time on research and development. ......approximately 330 (total) full-time employees."
Patent foundation: "As of December 31, 2008, we have more than 735 U.S. and foreign patents on various aspects of our technology, with expiration dates ranging from 2010 to 2026, and we have approximately 500 pending patent applications."
Customer concentration: "We have a high degree of revenue concentration, with our top five licensees representing approximately 67%, 67% and 63% of our revenue for the years ended December 31, 2008, 2007 and 2006, respectively. For the year ended December 31, 2008, revenue from Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic, Sony, Elpida and AMD each accounted for 10% or more of our total revenue."
"In the years ended December 31, 2008, 2007 and 2006, our largest source of royalties was related to the license of our patents for SDR and DDR-compatible products. Royalties decreased approximately $32.5 million for SDR and DDR-compatible products to $100.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2008 from $133.0 million for the same period in 2007.
In the year ended December 31, 2008 and 2007, royalties from XDR, FlexIO, DDR and serial link-compatible products represented the second largest category of royalties. Royalties from these products increased approximately $5.4 million to $21.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2008 from $16.4 million for the same period in 2007.
In the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007, royalties from RDRAM-compatible products represented the third largest source of royalties. Royalties from RDRAM memory chips and controllers decreased $0.3 million to $4.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2008 from $4.9 million for the same period in 2007."
Customer concentration: "We received in aggregate, approximately 84%, 81% and 80% of our net revenue from our ten largest customers in 2008, 2007 and 2006, respectively. LG Electronics was our largest direct customer in 2008, 2007 and 2006, representing 25%, 20% and 28% of net revenues, respectively. Sales to Samsung accounted for 20% of our net revenue in 2008 and 11% of our net revenue in both 2007 and 2006. Additionally, we sell to a number of contract manufacturers of Samsung. Total sales to Samsung and its contract manufacturers represented 36%, 25% and 20% of our net revenue for 2008, 2007 and 2006, respectively."
An unique approach to both fabrication process and foundries: ......we contract with specialty foundries that have former DRAM fabs employing advanced analog CMOS process technology and, under license, our patented ModularBCD technology. We have spent significant time and engineering resources collaborating with our suppliers to simulate, characterize, and, as necessary, adapt these processes to enable us to design and develop products for higher performance and smaller die size. We also capture the operational and financial benefits of the fabless model, including reduced manufacturing personnel, capital expenditures, fixed assets and fixed costs. Relative to other fabless companies that use CMOS foundries, we believe that our use of fully-depreciated DRAM fabs allows us to achieve lower costs using either advanced analog CMOS processes or specialized process technologies, such as our ModularBCD technology, in order to maximize device performance for a given application. ......To date, we have developed and released to production two wafer fabrication processes, ModularBCD, an advanced fully-isolated analog integrated circuit process, and vertical TrenchDMOS, an advanced discrete power MOSFET process. ModularBCD is our patented IC process technology designed for integrating fully-isolated power, analog and mixed-signal circuitry of differing operating voltages without the need for expensive epitaxial depositions or long high-temperature diffusions. Based on 0.35 micron features, it is a flexible, cost-effective process well-suited for precision analog and PowerSOC implementations. The majority of our new product designs now in development utilize ModularBCD. In the fourth quarter of 2008, ModularBCD products represented 19% of revenue."
Employees: "As of December 31, 2008, we had 281 employees located in the United States, China, Hong Kong, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Macau. Of this total, there were 99 employees in engineering, research and development, 82 in sales and marketing and 100 in operations, general and administration, quality assurance, information technology and facilities."
Price erosion: ".....average selling price per gigabyte for product revenues declined 70% in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2008 as compared to the same period of fiscal year 2007, and declined 62% in fiscal year 2008 compared to fiscal year 2007. The price decline was especially aggressive in the second half of fiscal year 2008, with sequential price declines of 30% in the third quarter and 28% in the fourth quarter. Price declines have exceeded cost declines in each of the last three fiscal years, resulting in negative product gross margin in fiscal year 2008."
Legal actions: SanDisk's 18 material legal actions listed are well covered in other press.
Wafer supply: "The majority of our memory is supplied from the flash ventures with Toshiba. ......We also purchase non-captive NAND memory supply primarily from Samsung and Hynix, and source our 3D one-time programmable, or OTP, memory on a foundry basis at TSMC. We are guaranteed a certain amount of the total output from Samsung and Hynix, but we are not obligated to use the guaranteed supply until we give them an order for future purchases. Our controller wafers are currently supplied by SMIC, TSMC, Tower, and UMC."
Test and assembly: "We sort and test our wafers at Toshiba in Yokkaichi, Japan, and Ardentec Corporation in Taiwan. Our flash memory products are assembled in both our in-house assembly and test facility in Shanghai, China, and through our network of contract manufacturers, including STATS ChipPAC Ltd., or STATS ChipPAC, in China, and Siliconware Precision Industries Co., Ltd., or SPIL, in Taiwan. Our packaged memory final test, card assembly and card test is performed at our in-house facility and at subcontractors such as SPIL and United Test and Assembly Center Ltd., in Taiwan, and Beautiful Enterprise Co., Ltd., Flextronics International Ltd., or Flextronics, Global Brands Manufacture Ltd. and STATS ChipPAC, in China."
Norwood, MA (02/25/2009) - Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) has acquired power-line communications technology to add to its market-leading portfolio of products for energy-metering applications. Analog Devices has acquired the PowerBUS™ RHINO power-line communications technology and all related patents, hardware, and software from Domosys Corporation, a privately held company based in Quebec City, Canada. This technology is effective for the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) systems utilities need for “smart-grid” applications that acquire and communicate consumption information for electricity, gas, and water. AMI systems provide two-way meter communications, allowing instructions to be sent to residences for multiple purposes, including “real-time” pricing data, demand-response actions, or remote service disconnects.
Power-line communications can transform any stand-alone meter into a device that can be controlled or monitored either locally or remotely. Signals are sent and received over existing power lines or twisted-pair wires, reducing the need for the installation of new wires or the building of new infrastructure. ADI will develop new products incorporating the PowerBUS RHINO technology and announce these offerings under the Analog Devices brand later this year.
Packaging and test volume: "In 2008, we tested over 4.2 billion units. We tested 49%, 48% and 44% of the units that we packaged in 2008, 2007 and 2006, respectively."
Packaging Gross Profit. Gross profit for packaging decreased $8.6 million to $577.8 million, or 23.8% of packaging net sales, in 2007 from $586.3 million, or 23.9% of packaging net sales, in 2006. The packaging gross profit decrease was primarily due to a decrease in our traditional leadframe packages offset by favorable product mix, consisting of an increase in our advanced package technologies including flip chip and 3D packages.
Test Gross Profit. Gross profit for test in 2007 increased $13.9 million to $103.4 million, or 33.4% of test net sales from $89.6 million, or 32.0% of test net sales, in 2006.
Top 25 customers in alphabetical order: "Altera Corporation, Analog Devices, Inc., Atheros Communication, Inc., Atmel Corporation, Avago Technologies Limited, Broadcom Corporation, Conexant Systems, Inc., Entropic Communications Limited, Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Global Unichip Corp., Infineon Technologies AG, Intel Corporation, IBM, LSI Corporation, NEC Corporation, NXP Semiconductors, ON Semiconductor Corp., QUALCOMM Incorporated, RF Micro Devices, Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sony Electronics Inc., ST Microelectronics, Texas Instruments Inc., Toshiba Corporation, Xilinx, Inc.....Our top 25 customers accounted for 73.5% of our net sales in 2008, and our ten largest customers accounted for approximately 49.8%, 47.0% and 43.6% of our net sales for the years ended December 31, 2008, 2007 and 2006, respectively. No customer accounted for more than 10% of our net sales in 2008, 2007 or 2006."
Employees: "As of December 31, 2008, we had 20,500 full-time employees. Of the total employee population, 14,900 were engaged in manufacturing services, 3,700 were engaged in manufacturing support, 300 were engaged in research and development, 300 were engaged in marketing and sales and 1,300 were engaged in finance, business management and administration. We expect to reduce our work force by an estimated 1,700 employees during the three months ending March 31, 2009."
Concentration of ownership: "As of December 31, 2008, Mr. James J. Kim, our Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, members of Mr. Kim’s immediate family and certain family trusts beneficially owned approximately 44% of our outstanding common stock."
Wafer fabrication details: "During 2008, we manufactured our microprocessor products at Fab 36 (300mm) primarily on 65-nanometer process technology. At the same time, we also began the transition to 45-nanometer process technology at Fab 36, which we expect to be completed by mid-2009.........We have sourcing and manufacturing technology agreements with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing pursuant to which Chartered is an additional manufacturing source for our microprocessors......With respect to our graphics and chipset products, we have strategic relationships with three semiconductor foundries, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) and Chartered. Currently, we are in volume production in TSMC’s and UMC’s 300-millimeter fabrication facilities. As of December 27, 2008, our graphics and chipsets were manufactured on 55-, 65-, 80-, 90-, 110-, 130-, 150- or 180- nanometer process technologies at third party foundries. ...........We are currently in the process of qualifying 40-nanometer process technology for certain products and expect to release these products in the second half of 2009."
Graphics products assembly and test: "....our graphics products are delivered from the third party foundry to our test, assembly and packaging partners, which include Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Group, Amkor, King Yuan Electronics, Siliconware Precision Industries and STATS-Chippac, who package and test the final application-specific integrated circuit."
Customer concentration: "In 2008, Hewlett-Packard Company accounted for more than 10 percent of our consolidated net revenues. Sales to Hewlett-Packard consisted primarily of products from our Computing Solutions segment. In addition, four customers accounted for approximately 45 percent of the net revenue attributable to our Graphics segment."
Joint Development Agreement with IBM: "In 2008, we conducted our microprocessor manufacturing process development activities primarily through our joint development agreement with IBM. Under this Joint Development Agreement or JDA, we jointly conducted development activities on new process technologies, including 45-nanometer, 32-nanometer, 22-nanometer and certain other advanced technologies, to be implemented on silicon wafers. Our relationship also included laboratory-based research of emerging technologies such as new transistor, interconnect, lithography and die-to-package connection technologies. We paid fees to IBM for joint development projects and we agreed to pay IBM royalties upon the occurrence of specified events, including in the event that we sublicense the jointly developed process technologies to specified third parties or if we bump wafers for a third party. Bumping wafers is one of the final stages of the manufacturing process in which wafers are prepared for assembly and test."
Employees: "As of December 27, 2008, we had approximately 14,700 employees. In connection with the sale of certain handheld assets to Qualcomm in January 2009, approximately 170 employees have accepted employment with Qualcomm. Upon consummation of the transactions contemplated by the Master Transaction Agreement, approximately 2800 employees will transfer to The Foundry Company."
Game consoles: "Our graphics technology for game consoles is being used in the Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft® Xbox 360™ game consoles. The revenues that we receive from these products are in the form of non-recurring engineering fees charged for design and development services, as well as per unit royalties paid to us by Nintendo and Microsoft."
Analog: "The worldwide market for analog semiconductors was about $36 billion in 2008. According to external sources, we have about a 12 percent share...."
Embedded Processors: "The worldwide market for embedded processors was about $17 billion in 2008. According to external sources, we have about a 10 percent share....."
Customer concentration: "Sales to Nokia were about 20 percent of our revenue in 2008."
Employees: "At December 31, 2008, we had 29,537 employees."
Contraction in R&D spend continues: "R&D expense was $1.94 billion in 2008, compared with $2.14 billion in 2007 and $2.20 billion in 2006."
EXAR TO ACQUIRE HIFN, INC.
Fremont, California, and Los Gatos, California, February 23, 2009 - Exar Corporation (NASDAQ: EXAR) and Hifn, Inc. (NASDAQ: HIFN) announced today that they have signed a definitive agreement under which Exar will acquire Hifn. Under the terms of the agreement, which was unanimously approved by the board of directors of each company, Exar will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Hifn common stock pursuant to an exchange offer, followed by a second step merger. In the exchange offer, Hifn stockholders will be able to elect to receive either (i) 0.3529 shares of Exar common stock and $1.60 in cash; or (ii) $4.00 in cash. The exchange offer is subject to customary closing conditions, including the tender in the exchange offer by Hifn stockholders of shares representing at least a majority of the outstanding shares of Hifn common stock on a fully diluted basis, and is anticipated to close early in the second calendar quarter of 2009. Al Sisto, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors of Hifn, will join the board of directors of Exar Corporation.
"We believe we can achieve our strategic and financial objectives more quickly with the Hifn acquisition," said Pete Rodriguez, Exar's president and chief executive officer. "The two companies have developed complementary technologies and share a common vision to deliver connectivity and storage solutions that are not only fast, but also efficient and secure. We are delighted to welcome the Hifn team to Exar," stated Mr. Rodriguez. "Our combined focus will enable us to realize expanded revenue and market share, aggressively pursue emerging markets, as well as increase overall gross margin."
"As a developer of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor technology, Exar has focused on creating solutions for high speed connectivity and managing data between computers, over networks and across broadband telecom systems," said Paul Pickering, Exar senior vice president of marketing. "For more than a decade, Hifn has been a pioneer in creating advanced technologies that secure and compress data flowing over networks and residing on storage systems. Hifn's semiconductor and software solutions work hand in hand with various high speed connections to ensure optimized performance. We expect to advance our strategic relationship with shared top tier customers including Cisco Systems, Huawei Technologies, HP and Alcatel-Lucent."
"I am very excited about the compelling synergies of the two companies," said Albert Sisto, chairman and chief executive officer of Hifn. "Hifn's strong experience in applied processors, cards and software that deliver solutions for continuous data protection and capacity optimization for the storage and networking markets together with Exar's, will provide the expertise to offer highly integrated system solutions with complete software support. I also believe Hifn's acquisition by Exar creates unique added value and is a great opportunity for our customers, employees and shareholders."
In addition to the complementary skills and experience of Hifn's engineering organization, Exar will acquire valuable intellectual property related to Ethernet, embedded processors, network security, compression, deduplication, RAID, packet processing architecture and SoC design methodology.
Customer concentration: "In 2008, Hewlett-Packard Company accounted for 20% of our net revenue (17% in 2007) and Dell Inc. accounted for 18% of our net revenue (18% in 2007). No other customer accounted for more than 10% of our net revenue."
Employees: "As of December 27, 2008, we had approximately 83,900 employees worldwide, with more than 50% of these employees located in the U.S. Worldwide, we had approximately 86,300 employees as of December 29, 2007 and 94,100 as of December 30, 2006."
Non-Marketable Equity Investments: "The carrying value of our non-marketable equity investment portfolio, excluding equity derivatives, totaled $4.1 billion as of December 27, 2008 ($3.4 billion as of December 29, 2007). The majority of the balance as of December 27, 2008 was concentrated in companies in the flash memory market segment and wireless connectivity market segment. Our flash memory market segment investments include our investment in IMFT of $1.7 billion ($2.2 billion as of December 29, 2007), our investment in IM Flash Singapore, LLP (IMFS) of $329 million ($146 million as of December 29, 2007), and our investment in Numonyx of $484 million. Our wireless connectivity market segment investments include our non-marketable investment in Clearwire LLC of $238 million........In addition, we regularly invest in non-marketable equity instruments of private companies, which range from early-stage companies that are often still defining their strategic direction to more mature companies with established revenue streams and business models." "During the fourth quarter of 2008, we recorded a $762 million impairment charge on our investment in Clearwire Communications, LLC (Clearwire LLC)..........We recorded a $250 million impairment charge on our investment in Numonyx B.V. during the third quarter of 2008."
NAND supply agreement with Apple: "In connection with an agreement between Intel and Apple, Inc. to supply a portion of the NAND flash memory output that we will purchase from IMFT, Apple provided a refundable $250 million pre-payment to Intel. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the NAND flash memory supply agreement was terminated, and the remaining portion of the pre-payment of $167 million was refunded to Apple."
MOSAID acquires patents from SercoNet Ltd.
OTTAWA, Ontario – Feb 18, 2009- MOSAID Technologies Inc. (TSX:MSD) today announced that it has acquired a significant portfolio of 300 patents from SercoNet Ltd. The new portfolio of wired and wireless communications patents will enable MOSAID to expand its licensing activity into the enterprise and consumer communications, networking, and Internet access markets.
"A key element of our growth strategy, along with continuous innovation, is to expand and diversify our patent licensing activities into new markets through the acquisition of rigorously selected patent portfolios," said John Lindgren, President and Chief Executive Officer, MOSAID. "These are strong, tested patents, and we look forward to seeing them deliver new licensing revenues."
Under the terms of the patent purchase agreement, MOSAID receives full title to the portfolio for an undisclosed amount, paid over the next four months. MOSAID will also pay SercoNet a percentage of the net royalty revenues earned from licensing these patents to third parties.
The acquired portfolio relates to wired and wireless communications products and systems. These include Power over Ethernet (PoE), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), IP Private Branch Exchanges (IP-PBXs), Wireless Access Points (WAPs), IP Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (IP-DSLAMs), cable modems, and Asynchronous DSL (ADSL) modems. The portfolio is geographically diverse, with U.S, European and Asian patents and patent applications.
With this new portfolio, MOSAID will begin granting patent licenses in a range of well established and growing markets, from PoE-enabled data switches, IP-PBXs and IP telephones, to home networking and Powerline plug-ins. The new patents also complement MOSAID's licensing activity in the communications router and wireless access point markets.
Employees: As of December 31, 2008, we had a total of 220 employees worldwide, including 147 in research and development, 37 in sales and marketing and 36 in operations, finance and administration. Of these employees, 141 were located in the United States.
Wafer Foundry and processes: "........IBM, Jazz Semiconductor (a Tower Group Company) and X-FAB, to help ensure our future demands are in line with their manufacturing technology roadmaps and capacities. These foundries offer a mature BiCMOS production process. In addition, IBM and Jazz Semiconductor offer advanced silicon germanium (SiGe) process technology.
Assembly, probe and test: We use Amkor in South Korea and in the Philippines and ASE in South Korea for IC packaging and final test. We use Criteria Labs in Austin, Texas for wafer probe and in Penrose, Colorado for tape and reel packaging. We also use ISE in Austin, Texas for wafer probe. We also perform RF testing at our facility in Plano, Texas.
SUNNYVALE, CA – February 19, 2009 – Maxim Integrated Products (NASDAQ: MXIM) announced today that it has acquired the Wireless Control and Secured Transaction product lines from Zilog, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZILG). Maxim expects the acquisition of these product lines will be accretive to earnings and cash flow in its fiscal year 2009 and later.
In this transaction, Maxim and Universal Electronics Incorporated (NASDAQ: UEIC) jointly purchased the Wireless Control business of Zilog. Maxim purchased the hardware portion of the Wireless Control product line from Zilog, which consists of the microcontroller silicon chip business and supporting intellectual property. Maxim intends to combine the Zilog wireless microcontroller product line with its own unique, ultra-low power Infrared (IR) microcontroller family. UEI purchased the software portion of Zilog’s Wireless Control product line, which consists of its patents, universal remote database and software, and related assets. The combination of Maxim’s low-power microcontrollers and UEI’s industry leading IR databases will enable customers to design and manufacture universal remote controls with advanced features, improved performance, and longer battery life.
Maxim also acquired Zilog’s Secure Transaction product line, which features the Zatara® 32-bit ARM®-based microcontroller family of high performance ARM System-on-Chips (SoCs) used in PCI (Payment Card Industry) payment terminals. These products deliver a highly secure computing environment that enables customers to accelerate time to market and reduce costs in security-critical applications.
Wafer foundry source and percentage of revenue: Approximately 41% of our fiscal first quarter 2009 revenue and approximately 44% of our fiscal year 2008 revenue was from products fabricated at third-party wafer-fabrication facilities, primarily TSMC.
SANTA CLARA, CA. – FEBRUARY 18, 2009 – NVIDIA Corporation today responded to a Monday court filing (Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware) in which Intel alleged that the four-year-old chipset license agreement the companies signed does not extend to Intel’s future generation CPUs with “integrated” memory controllers, such as Nehalem. The filing does not impact NVIDIA chipsets that are currently being shipped.
NVIDIA entered into the agreement in 2004 in order to bring platform innovations to Intel CPU based systems. In return, Intel took a license to NVIDIA’s rich portfolio of 3D, GPU, and other computing patents.
The industry and consumers now count on innovations from NVIDIA. Microsoft recently endorsed ION because it offers consumers the first truly affordable premium Windows experience. Late last year Apple selected NVIDIA’s chipset for its entire new line of notebooks including the MacBook Classic, MacBook Air, MacBook and MacBook Pro. Today, companies like Acer, Alienware, Asus, Dell, Falcon Northwest, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo, MSI, NEC, and Toshiba all ship exciting innovations created by NVIDIA as a result of its agreement with Intel.
Huang said that, given the broad and growing adoption of NVIDIA’s platform innovations, it is not surprising that Intel is now initiating a dispute over a contract signed four years ago. Innovations like ION, SLI, Hybrid power, and CUDA threaten Intel’s ability to control the PC platform.
NVIDIA has been attempting to resolve the disagreement with Intel in a fair and reasonable manner for over a year. NVIDIA’s chipsets for Intel’s current CPU bus interface are not affected by the dispute.
PHY IP business: "In 2008, we began to leverage our substantial intellectual property portfolio into licensing opportunities with third parties. We offer a variety of intellectual property "cores" and design services in deep submicron, 130 nm and 65 nm, process technologies. To date, our primary focus has been our Gigabit Ethernet Cu PHY and switch technologies as well as high-speed PHYs and signal integrity "cores". We anticipate being able to exploit our many years of technology development by providing this technology to systems suppliers and other semiconductor suppliers in the form of intellectual property via licensing arrangements. We believe we are in a unique position to supply such intellectual property to other Integrated Circuit ("IC") vendors as we are either the technology or low-power leader for such intellectual property, or such intellectual property is only available from IC vendors that are competing in the same markets as the companies looking for such intellectual property. As a smaller, more focused and specialized IC vendor, we are less likely to compete with those companies..........Licensing revenues were $5.0 million in the first quarter of 2009. We did not recognize any licensing revenues in the same period of 2008. On December 28, 2007, the Company entered into an arrangement to license intellectual property to a third-party. Specific deliverables to the licensee were defined in the agreement and required acceptance from the licensee. Under the agreement, Vitesse received $15.0 million in license fees for the rights to certain products and technology. Of the fees, $10.0 million was recognized upon delivery and acceptance of the licensed technology in the fourth quarter of 2008. The remaining $5.0 million was recognized upon the one-year anniversary of the agreement in the first quarter of 2009. No royalties were received or recognized in the first quarter of 2009."
Update on Legal Proceedings: "On August 11, 2008, the Court granted final approval of settlements in the federal and state derivative actions filed on behalf of Vitesse against certain current or former directors and officers of Vitesse, and nominally against Vitesse alleging claims for breach of fiduciary duty, abuse of control, gross mismanagement, waste of corporate assets, unjust enrichment, constructive trust, rescission, accounting manipulations, and violations of California Corporations Code §§25402 and 25403. As part of the settlement of the federal and state derivative actions, the Company adopted certain Corporate Governance measures. Three former executives of Vitesse, Messrs. Tomasetta, Hovanec, and Mody, released the Company from all rights to future indemnification and costs of defense in the related SEC and Department of Justice investigations. Vitesse retains the right to continue its state court action against KPMG, LLP, its former independent registered public accounting firm. On January 14, 2009, Vitesse contributed 4,700,000 shares of Vitesse common stock, with a fair market value of $4.2 million to cover the attorneys' fees and expenses of the derivative plaintiffs' counsel. The Court entered final judgment implementing all of the above referenced terms and the case is concluded in all respects."
Wafer fabrication, assembly and test: ".....we use third-parties (including TSMC, IBM, Chartered Amkor, ASAT, and ASE) for wafer fabrication and assembly services."
Litigation update: "On July 3, 2007, the Company announced that it had filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against eight companies for infringement of two U.S. patents (the “Compact ISA litigation”). The two patents at issue in the lawsuit are U.S. Patent No. 5,944,807 and U.S. Patent No. 6,098,141, both entitled “Compact ISA-Bus Interface”. The Company alleges that Advanced Micro Devices, Atmel Corporation, Broadcom Corporation (“Broadcom”), Renesas Technology America, Inc., Silicon Storage Technology, Inc., SMSC, STMicroelectronics and VIA Technologies, Inc. have infringed the patents by making, selling, and offering one or more of the following products: core logic chipsets, Super I/O devices, Trusted Platform Modules, certain flash memory devices, certain I/O controllers and other semiconductor products incorporating Compact ISA-Bus Interface technology. The Company has requested a jury trial in this matter.
In the quarter ended December 31, 2008, the Company reached settlements with two of the defendants in the Compact ISA litigation. The Company dismissed STMicroelectronics as the sale of the alleged infringing parts was insignificant. The Company settled and entered into a dismissal agreement with Broadcom, pursuant to which Broadcom agreed pay $1,000,000 to the Company in consideration for the Company’s agreement to dismiss its lawsuit against Broadcom. Pursuant to the terms of the dismissal agreement, Broadcom has an option to acquire a license from the Company for a period of forty-five days after receiving notice from the Company of trial completion. In January 2009, the Company reached settlement with two additional parties relating to the Compact ISA litigation. The Company dismissed Silicon Storage Technology, Inc. as the sales of the alleged infringing parts was insignificant. The Company also settled and entered into a dismissal agreement with Renesas, pursuant to which Renesas agreed to pay $750,000 to the Company in consideration for the Company’s agreement to dismiss its lawsuit against Renesas. Pursuant to the terms of the dismissal agreement, Renesas has an option to acquire a license from the Company for a period of forty-five days after receiving notice from the Company of trial completion."
Royalties from NVIDIA: "The Company had an arbitration hearing the last week of June 2008 with NVIDIA, as the Company believed NVIDIA breached the terms of the License Agreement. The Company was seeking payment for the past due quarters that OPTi believed NVIDIA continued to use the Pre-Snoop technology. The Company received the arbitrator ruling on September 19, 2008. In the ruling the arbitrator found that NVIDIA had continued to use the Pre-Snoop technology for the five quarters beginning February 1, 2007 to April 30, 2008, and that a change to the BIOS was a change to the infringing parts as per the License Agreement. The total award that the Company received from the arbitrator was $3,750,000 for quarterly royalties and $205,000 for interest on the award. The Company received the payment from NVIDIA in late October 2008. The ruling of the arbitrator may not be indicative of the Company’s ability to collect future royalties from NVIDIA."
HDMI Market: "HDMI Licensing, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Silicon Image,......As of December 31, 2008, more than 800 manufacturing companies had licensed HDMI from HDMI Licensing, LLC. .........In-Stat reports that approximately 300 million HDMI enabled devices incorporating HDMI were expected to be shipped in 2008, with over 394 million devices expected to ship in 2009 and an installed base of nearly 1.5 billion HDMI-enabled devices projected by 2010."
DVI Market: "In-Stat estimated that 15 million DVI-enabled PC devices were shipped by industry participants in 2008. Although DVI is being replaced by the more feature-rich HDMI in many applications, In-Stat estimated that approximately 118 million DVI-enabled devices were expected to ship in 2008."
Wafer supply and line width: "Our semiconductor products are currently fabricated using 0.35, 0.25, 0.18 and 0.13 micron processes. We continuously evaluate the benefits, primarily the improved performance, costs and feasibility, of migrating our products to smaller geometry process technologies. We have conducted certain development projects for some of our customers, involving smaller geometries, namely 90 nm and 65 nm designs. We rely almost entirely on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to produce all of our semiconductor products. Because of the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry, capacity availability can change quickly and significantly. We attempt to optimize wafer availability by continuing to use less advanced wafer geometries, such as 0.35, 0.25, 0.18 and 0.13 micron, for which foundries generally have more available capacity."
Assembly & Test: "Siliconware Precision Industries Co. Ltd., or SPIL, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, or ASE, and Amkor Taiwan are subcontractors located in Taiwan that assemble and test our semiconductor products."
Staff: "As of December 31, 2008, we had a total of 610 employees, including 259 located outside of the United States."
Recent Legal Activity: "On June 11, 2008, Analogix filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against the Company that alleged violations of the Sherman Act Sections 1 and 2, Cartwright Act, and Section 17200 of the California Business and Professions Code. The complaint sought monetary damages and injunctive relief. The complaint alleged that the Company, and co-defendants HDMI Licensing, LLC and Simplay Labs, LLC, conspired with the founders of the HDMI Consortium in violation of the antitrust laws. Following a mediation on November 21, 2008, the Company and Analogix entered into a settlement agreement in which they agreed to dismiss the two outstanding lawsuits between them and to release all claims. As part of the settlement Analogix agreed effective immediately, not to market or sell HDMI semiconductors worldwide that are pin- or register-compatible with Silicon Image’s HDMI-enabled products, except as necessary to fulfill certain existing customer obligations. The Company also granted Analogix a license to selected HDMI-related patents and other technology, on terms that the Company and Analogix agreed to keep confidential. In addition, Analogix dropped with prejudice its antitrust suit against HDMI Licensing, LLC and Simplay Labs, LLC."
Customer list including primary ODM and sell-throughs: "In 2008 and 2007, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. accounted for 19% and 25% of our net revenue, respectively. In 2006, Hon-Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. and UTStarcom, Inc. accounted for 20% and 10% of our net revenue, respectively. While we primarily sell directly to ODMs, the ODM generally identifies on its purchase order the OEM for whom they are purchasing our product. Based on the sell-through information provided to us by the ODMs, the following companies or their subsidiaries are among those that have incorporated our products through ODMs during the year ended December 31, 2008: 2Wire, Inc., 3Com Corp., Acer, Inc., Apple, Inc., Aruba Wireless Networks, Inc., AsusTEK Computer, Inc., AVM GmbH, Belkin Corp., Buffalo, Inc., Dell Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc. (including the Linksys Group, Inc.), D-Link Systems, Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Fujitsu Siemens Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., Lenovo Pte. Ltd., MikroTik Ltd., NEC Electronics Corp., NETGEAR, Inc., Nintendo Co., Ltd., Ruckus Wireless, Inc., Sagem Communications, Samsung Group, Siemens AG, Sony Corporation, Thomson, Toshiba Technology Corp., TP-Link Technologies Co., Ltd., Ubiquiti Networks, Inc., UTStarcom, Inc., Verizon Inc., ZyXEL Communications Corporation"
Patent Portfolio and activity: "As of December 31, 2008, we held 132 issued U.S. patents and 175 pending U.S. patent applications, in addition to international patents and pending patent applications."
Wafer Foundries and Assembly & Test: "We currently have in production products using 0.25 micron, 0.18-micron, 0.13-micron and 0.09-micron process geometries and a variety of foundries. We depend on a range of foundry contractors to manufacture substantially all of our products.......We depend on six independent foundries to manufacture substantially all of our products. Our key silicon foundries for wafer production are Chartered in Singapore, SMIC in China, Silterra in Malaysia, TSMC in Taiwan, Tower Semiconductor Ltd. in Israel and UMC in Taiwan........key test and assembly subcontractors including, but not limited to Amkor Technology, Inc. in China, Taiwan and Korea, Casio Micronics Co., Ltd. In Japan, Greatek Electronics, Inc. in Taiwan, Microelectronics Corporation in Taiwan, Sigurd Microelectronics Corp. in Taiwan , Siliconware Precision Industries Co., Ltd. in China and Taiwan and United Test and Assembly Center Ltd. in Singapore."
Staffing: "As of December 31, 2008, we employed 1,079 full-time employees, including 752 in research and development and operations, 240 in sales and marketing and 87 in general and administration."
On December 10, 2008, we and Broadcom filed a complaint for declaratory judgment against Wi-LAN, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for Northern District of California, requesting the court to declare, among other things, that U.S. patent number 6,549,759, or the ‘759 Patent, assigned to Wi-LAN is invalid, unenforceable and that we do not infringe any valid claims of the ‘759 Patent. This declaratory judgment action stemmed from Wi-LAN’s threat to add this patent into the complaints filed by Wi-LAN against Atheros and others, now pending in the Eastern District of Texas. Similar declaratory judgment actions were filed by a number of other companies against Wi-LAN. However, there can be no assurance that we will be successful in seeking declaratory relief from Wi-LAN’s threat.
On January 30, 2009, we filed a Customer Claim pursuant to the Securities Investor Protection Act, or SIPA, with the SIPA Trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, Inc., in an effort to gain access to money that may be available to former Lehman clients through the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. For related reasons, we plan to file a Proof of Claim in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York against Lehman Brothers, Inc. related to compensatory and punitive damages incurred in Lehman Brothers’ investment of the Company’s cash in auction-rate securities and the resulting losses of income and liquidity. There can be no assurance that we will obtain compensation for our claims.
Project status: At December 31, 2008, the single-chip GPS device project associated with our acquisition of u-Nav was approximately 65% complete, with an estimated 0.8 years remaining to complete at an estimated cost of $3.0 million. At December 31, 2008, the Ethernet controller and switch projects associated with our acquisition of Attansic were substantially complete, and actual results were materially consistent with our assumptions at the time of the acquisition. As of December 31, 2008, the mobile communications IC projects associated with our acquisition of ZyDAS were discontinued, however we do not expect discontinuation of the project to have a material impact on our consolidated results of operations or financial condition. The original assumptions consisted of expected completion dates for the IPR&D projects, estimated costs to complete the projects, and revenue and expense projects for the products once they entered the market.
GSI is a fabless supplier of SRAMs with Cisco as a key customer. This disclosure offers insight to the Cisco supply chain management in the downturn.
Key customer: "Based on information provided to us by Cisco Systems’ consignment warehouse and contract manufacturers, purchases by Cisco Systems represented approximately 28%, 30% and 28% of our net revenues in fiscal 2008, 2007 and 2006, respectively. During the quarter ended March 31, 2007, Cisco Systems announced the implementation of a “lean manufacturing” program under which it reduced the levels of inventory carried by it and by its contract manufacturers. The transition to this new program resulted in reductions in purchases of our products by Cisco Systems’ contract manufacturers during the quarter ended March 31, 2007, as they drew down existing inventories. This transition continued to impact our revenues in the quarter ended June 30, 2007. Purchases by Cisco Systems’ consignment warehouses and contract manufacturers increased in the four quarters ended June 30, 2008 compared to the two immediately preceding quarters and then declined again in the two quarters ended December 31, 2008."
Distributors: "....in the nine months ended December 31, 2008 and in fiscal 2008, 2007 and 2006, our distributor Avnet Logistics accounted for 23.8%, 29.2%, 24.7% and 30.4%, respectively, of our net revenues and our distributor Nu Horizons accounted for 7.8%, 7.2%, 8.7% and 10.3%, respectively, of our net revenues."
Wafer Supply: ".....we obtain wafers from a single foundry, TSMC."
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO—February 12, 2009 — U.S. semiconductor maker Ramtron International Corporation (Nasdaq: RMTR), the leading developer and supplier of nonvolatile ferroelectric random access memory (F-RAM) and integrated semiconductor products, today announced that it has entered into a foundry services agreement with IBM. The companies plan to install Ramtron’s F-RAM semiconductor process technology in IBM's Burlington, Vermont, advanced wafer manufacturing facility. Once installed, the new foundry supply will serve as a foundation for the introduction of new and cost effective high-performance F-RAM semiconductor products.........Ramtron expects to generate first production wafers during 2010 on the IBM 0.18-micron wafer manufacturing process. IBM will become Ramtron’s third foundry supplier for its F-RAM semiconductor products, along with Fujitsu Limited and Texas Instruments.
In tandem with the foundry agreement, Ramtron is in the process of establishing an $11.0 million loan facility through Silicon Valley Bank to fund the capital and development costs in connection with the foundry relationship with IBM.
AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France - LONDON, United Kingdom, FEBRUARY 11th, 2009- INSIDE Contactless, a leading provider of advanced open-standard contactless chip technologies today announced that it is working with Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) to accelerate the growth of the Near Field Communication (NFC) handset market by jumpstarting the product development cycle, speeding time to market and significantly reducing development costs.
As part of the collaboration, the two companies will develop two 3G handset reference designs—one each for UMTS and CDMA2000 networks—that combine Qualcomm’s Mobile Station Modem™ (MSM™) chipsets with INSIDE’s MicroRead® multi-standard NFC chip.
Additionally, Qualcomm Ventures has joined INSIDE’s other venture capital and strategic investors making an equity investment of €4 million (US$5.2 million), extending INSIDE’s series C Preferred funding round and bringing the total for this round to €31.7 million (US$41.2 million).
Valuation of Sigmatel ISG acqusition: "In July 2008, the Company acquired Imaging Systems Group (ISG), Sigmatel Inc.’s multi-function printer imaging product lines, for an aggregate purchase price of $16.1 million. Of the $16.1 million purchase price, $2.5 million was allocated to net tangible assets, $7.8 million was allocated to identifiable intangible assets, $5.0 million was allocated to goodwill and $0.8 million was expensed as in-process Research and Development......."
Wafer Foundry, Assembly and Test Vendors: ".....we rely principally on one third-party vendor, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), to manufacture the ICs we design. We also currently rely on Asian third-party assembly subcontractors, principally Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), to assemble and package the silicon chips provided by the wafers for use in final products. Additionally, we rely on these offshore subcontractors for a substantial portion of the testing requirements of our products prior to shipping. We expect utilization of third-party subcontractors to continue in the future."
Patent portfolio size: "As of January 3, 2009, we had approximately 870 issued or pending United States patents in the IC field"
Revenue: "....for the December 2008 quarter decreased approximately 25% from the immediately preceding quarter, primarily due to a 19% contraction of the total available market. This led to a 23% decrease in the number of disk drives shipped. Our unit demand was also negatively impacted by a modest decline in our market share. Price erosion was partially offset by a favorable product mix, as higher priced enterprise drives comprised a greater percentage of the units shipped.
Revenue for the December 2008 quarter decreased approximately 34% from the year-ago quarter, primarily due to the contraction of the total available market. This led to a 26% decrease in the number of disk drives shipped. Price declines in the December quarter were the most severe in the past 5 years, and were most prevalent in our 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch ATA products. Additionally, our revenue was negatively impacted by the continued transition of demand from 3.5-inch to 2.5-inch ATA products where we have meaningfully less market share. We believe this continued transition also contributed to our modest overall market share loss in the quarter. A favorable mix of products shipped within each market offset some of the revenue decline.
New Litigation: "Siemens, AG v. Seagate Technology (Ireland) — On December 2, 2008, Siemens served Seagate Technology (Ireland) with a writ of summons alleging infringement of European Patent (UK) No. 0 674 769 (the EU ‘769 patent), which is the European counterpart to US Patent No. 5,686,838 upon which Siemens had sued Seagate Technology in the United States. The suit was filed in the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland, Chancery Division. Siemens alleges that giant magnetoresistance (GMR), tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR), and tunnel giant magnetoresistance (TGMR) products designed and manufactured by Seagate Technology (Ireland) infringe the EU’769 patent. The Company believes the claims are without merit and intend to defend against them vigorously.
Magsil Corporation and Massachusetts Institute of Technology v. Seagate Technology, et al. — On December 12, 2008, Magsil Corporation and Massachusetts Institute of Technology filed a complaint in the US District Court for the District of Delaware against three Seagate entities, Maxtor Corporation, and twelve other hard disc drive and recording head manufacturing companies. The complaint alleges that unspecified hard disc drives and components thereof infringe two US patents: 5,629,922, entitled “Electron Tunneling Device Using Ferromagnetic Thin Films, “ and 5,835,314, entitled “Tunnel Junction Device For Storage and Switching of Signals.” The complaint seeks judgment of infringement, an injunction, damages in an unstated amount, interest, and costs. The Company is evaluating the complaint.
Qimonda AG v, LSI Corporation, et al. — On December 19, 2008, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) instituted an investigation under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, at the request of complainant Qimonda AG, naming LSI Corporation and six Seagate Technology entities as respondents. The complaint alleges that LSI and Seagate import products into the US that infringe seven Qimonda patents relating to the design and manufacture of semiconductor integrated chips. The ITC set trial for June 1, 2009. The target date for completion of the investigation and, if a violation of the law is found, issuance of any remedy is February 16, 2010. The Company is evaluating the complaint."
Customers: "Our customers include Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems, Inc., Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., LM Ericsson Telephone Company, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel Networks, Inc. and Zhongxing Telecom Equipment Corp. (ZTE).
Revenue: (Versus same quarter last year) "Net revenues from our multiservice access DSP products increased $2.7 million, or 33%, reflecting increased sales volumes across our newer VoIP product families. We are experiencing increased sales volumes of our newer VoIP product families as telecommunication service providers install equipment to transmit their voice traffic over IP data networks. We believe we are benefiting from the deployment of IP-based networks both in new network buildouts (particularly in Asia) and the replacement of circuit-switched networks. "
San Jose, CA, February 11, 2009 — Micrel, Incorporated (Nasdaq NM: MCRL), an industry leader in analog, high bandwidth communications and Ethernet IC solutions, announced today that a private placement was completed in which Micrel, Incorporated acquired 1.6 million shares of its common stock from Obrem Capital Management LLC at a purchase price of $6.25 per share, representing a moderate discount to the 30-day trailing average closing price on the day that the parties reached an agreement in principle, for a total purchase price of $10 million. The Company used a portion of its cash on hand for the shares it purchased in the transaction. The purchase was made as part of the Company’s share repurchase program previously announced on December 30, 2008.
In addition, Ray Zinn, Micrel’s president and CEO, and certain members of Micrel’s board of directors and executive officers, purchased an additional 283,000 shares from Obrem Capital, at the same discounted price for a total purchase price of approximately $1.8 million.
In total, the purchases represent 2.8% of the Company’s common stock outstanding. The Company will have 65,378,655 shares of common stock outstanding after the purchase.

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