November 30, 2007

STMicroelectronics 3Q07 Update

Quarterly revenues for STMicroelectronics were estimated at $979.1 million for communications segment which was a little over 38% of the total revenues of $2.6 billion for the period. Compared to last quarter it was reasonably up. The major contributor continued to be the Broadband segment which includes chips for IPTV, DSL etc. Revenues from this segment were around 44.7% of the communication revenues.

The generic chips contributed another 26.7% of the revenues for the segment while Cellular chips fetched around 11.3% of the revenues. 802.11x and Bluetooth technology chips contributed in volume revenues of nearly 9.4% while VoIP specific chips contributed the remaining 7.9%.

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Ikanos 3Q07 Update

Ikanos revenues of $27.3 million for 3Q 2007 represented a gain of over 6% compared to last quarter. Gateway equipment chips revenue accounted for 45% of total revenues, with the rest coming from access equipment chips. This quarter Ikanos witnessed solid demand from European and Japanese OEMs that resulted in 45% sequential access port growth during the quarter.

Asia-Pac was the main revenue contributor with revenue share of around 70%. Europe followed with another 18% while the rest came from other regions. Country wise Japan, France and Korea were the major contributors with respective contributions of 56%, 16% and 12% of the quarterly
revenues.

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November 28, 2007

PicoChip 3Q07 Update

Revenues for 3Q 2007 for picoChip were $5 million which it claims was a significant jump compared to the last quarter. WiMAX generated the most about 60% of the total revenues. HSPA was the next revenue stream with around 30% of the revenues while others contributed the remaining 10%.

Geographically Asia contributed around half of the company’s business while Europe brought in 30% of the revenues. Rest 20% revenues came from the US.

During the quarter it announced WiMAX femtocell single-chip and Wave2 IO-MIMO supporting both uplink and downlink. It also add up a few customers, Alpha and Xinwei the announced ones. It partnered with L&T Infotech, India for development support.

Broadlight 3Q07 Update

Broadlight’s 3Q 2007 revenues were at estimated $15.5 million. Asia fetched around 70-75% of its revenues. Although revenues increased compared to the last quarter, but it was not enough to maintain its position within the Optical networking chip vendors. This quarter Broadlight skipped to 3rd position with Teknovus moving ahead of it.

Broadlight’s slipping down is evident as EPON is still preferred PON and we don’t see much of GPON happening which is the area of Broadlight.

During the period it closed $12 million series E funding round led by Benchmark Capital. It did sign up a few customers, although none is announced. It also opened an office in Taipei, Taiwan to provide sales and support services for manufacturers in the country.

Teknovus 3Q07 Update

Quarterly revenues for Teknovus were estimated at $16.1 million. With this Broadlight was pushed back by one position and Teknovus stood 2nd in the Optical Networking Chip Market for the quarter. The company also managed to secure $28 million in equity financing. Investments came from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Galleon Crossover Fund.

Revenues continued to come from the existing customer base of Mitsubishi, Fujitsu and Samsung. However, no major deployment was announced this quarter. Although this quarter Telekom Malaysia R&D selected Teknovus for their WDM PON system under Photonic Research Program.

Majority of the revenues continued to come from the APAC which as per our estimate is 80%.

November 26, 2007

Broadcom 3Q07 Update

Estimated revenues for 3Q 2007 were $939.6 million up by around 5.8% compared to last quarter. The units of chips shipped during the same period were around 21.5 million for various segments like 802.11x, Bluetooth and broadband. Broadcom contributed around 10% of the quarterly revenues for communications chip market.

Major chunk of revenues during the quarter were from sales of 802.11x and Bluetooth chips which fetched the company about 27% of the revenues. Broadband followed with 23%. Other segments that saw significant revenue contribution were VOIP 20% and Cellular 13%.

Broadcom made some strategic alliances this quarter that will enhance its revenues and stake in cellular market. First of all it was selected by Nokia for supplying single-chip cellular baseband processor for EDGE mobiles. Broadcom also joined the S60 community that gives it access to software, technology and S60 ecosystem resources for developing advanced smartphones based on S60 software which is developed by Nokia. It also joined the LiMo foundation that works on Linux OS for mobiles. Product wise it launched single-chip GPS solution for mobile applications. With all these developments we should see Broadcom aggressively re-positioning in the cellular market.

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SiGe 3Q07 Update

Q3 2007 revenues for SiGe were up 32% compared to same period last year. WLAN power amplifiers and RF front-end modules constituted major chunk and contributed about 70% of company revenues.

Geographically, Asia brought in the maximum business for the company. To cater to the growing Asian market, the company expanded operations into this region by relocating to the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park.

During the period SiGe announced several product development plans. For WiMAX it announced plans to deliver a series of RF front-end modules. The SE2593A is a 2.4GHz and 5GHz WLAN MIMO RF solution while SE2537L and SE2581L power amplifiers are the building blocks for WiFi implementations in client access applications like Laptops, etc.

Some of the significant customers at the end of the quarter were Apple, Broadcom, Conexant, CSR, Dell, HP, Linksys, Netgear, Nintendo and Samsung.

November 22, 2007

Texas Instruments 3Q07 Update

Texas Instruments led the Communications Chip Market in 3Q 2007 with revenues of $3.66 billion up sequentially by 7% q-o-q. Of these around 47% were the hardcore silicon sales revenues which amounted to $1.73 billion.

Segment wise, Broadband contributed the maximum of revenues with around 35% coming from it. Cellular contributed 28% of revenues. Generic Networking chips fetched in around 19% while 802.11x technologies share of revenues was around 10%. VoIP contributed near 8%.

For the quarter the overall estimated shipments for the company were around 131.1 million which was 16% of the entire chips consumed by the communication market during the period.

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November 20, 2007

Conexant 3Q07 Update

Q3’07 revenues for Conexant were $183.9 million, up by 2.4% q-o-q. This includes one time royalty of around $4 million related to an existing license agreement. Segment revenue shares remained same as 2Q07, with Imaging and PC Media contributing 40%, Broadband Access 30%, Broadband Media processor 25% and the Embedded Wireless Network 5%.

Majority of the shipments were seen in DSL and SD STB in the communications segment. As of this quarter the total DSL port shipments were around 250,000.

Around 89% of the quarter’s revenues came from Asia-Pacific region. Americas contributed around 6% and the EMEA revenues were 5%.

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Lattice Semiconductors 3Q07 Update

Lattice Semiconductors had revenues of $58.3 million, down by 2% q-o-q. The communication chip product line however saw an increase in revenues by 2% to $31.5 million. According to Lattice, China and Japan saw an upward trend during 3Q07. Wireless infrastructure equipment and set top boxes manufacturers saw growth. However, there was some weakness from the wireline side.

By product family the FPGA revenues were around 23% while PLD contributed the rest of 77%. During the quarter around 14% ($8.2 million) of the revenues was generated by new products launched. Mainstream product revenues constituted 53% while another 33% came from mature products. New product revenues continue to grow and this quarter it was up by 28%.

Geographically Asia was the major contributor of revenues with around 59% of the revenues coming from this region. Americas contributed around 21% and the rest 20% came from the EMEA. Of these revenues 66% came directly while distributors got in the rest 34%.

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November 19, 2007

Communications chip market generates $9.4 billion during 3Q07

Communications Chip Market generated revenues of $9.4 billion in 3Q 2007 up by around 6% sequentially on Q-o-Q basis. The total shipments estimated during the period were 819 million chips. Shipments increased by about 1% q-o-q. Texas Instruments leads the market with estimated 18.5% market share. Other leaders for the quarter are Freescale, STMicrosystems, Broadcom and Qualcomm. Together the top 5 leaders had around 58% of the market share during 3Q07.


commchipvendorsshare3q07.JPG

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Generic networking chips market worth $3.1 billion in 3Q07

General Networking chip market generated estimated revenues of $3,097 million for the quarter 3Q07. Chips shipped for the same period were estimated at 477.2 million units.

Texas Instruments maintained lead in this segment with around 11% of the total share. NXP was the second largest player with share of around 10%. Other significant players are Freescale, STMicrosystems and Maxim IC.

In comparison to 2Q 2007, all the top 5 players saw some sequential decline in their revenues as well as in the number of units shipped. The possible reason for this could be the uptake in the usage of special purpose chips rather than the usage of generic networking chip.

General Networking chip segment is the largest revenue contributor in communications chip market.

November 16, 2007

Broadband chips market worth $2.2 billion in 3Q07

Chips intended for broadband technologies generated estimated revenues of $2.2 billion during the quarter 3Q07. Broadband chip shipments for the same period were estimated at 119.23 million units.

Texas Instruments maintained lead in this segment with around 28% of the total share. ST Microsystems is the second largest player with 20% market share. Other significant players are Freescale, Broadcom and Infineon.

CPE remained the major consumer of broadband chips. Average selling price in this segment continues to decline. This is reflected by the fact that while top vendors in this category have increased their unit shipments, the revenue increase is not proportionate.

For a chip vendor, maintaining leadership in the overall communications chip market is very much dependent on the leadership in this segment. Broadband and cellular are the two major segments in the telecoms market for chip vendors.

November 15, 2007

802.11x and Bluetooth chips generate $1.12 billion in 3Q07

802.11x and Bluetooth chips generated an estimated $1.12 billion worldwide during 3Q07. Nearly 41.4 million chips in this category were shipped during the period. These chips were used for both core and CPE devices in various wireless technologies like WiFi, WiMAX, Bluetooth, Zigbee and WiBro. However, chip usage in core devices fetched more revenue compared to CPE where the usage was more in terms of units.

Compared to 2Q’07 results, the segment witnessed a q-o-q growth by about 4%. All the top 5 leaders in this segment improved their market share, although marginally. Unit wise they saw some proportionate increase. I am therefore inclined to assume that the average selling price in this segment did not see any significant fluctuations.

Broadcom leads the market maintaining 22% of the revenue share. Freescale, Texas Instruments, CSR and STMicrosystems followed that lead in that order. The top 5 vendors in this segment made up 73% of the total revenues for the period. Consumption-wise they supplied 71% of the total chips used.

November 14, 2007

Cellular chips 3Q07 Update

Worldwide cellular chip market revenues for 3Q 2007 touched an estimated $2,063 million. An estimated 141 million chips were shipped during the quarter.

The market was led by Texas Instruments which took market share of around 24%. That lead was followed by Qualcomm, Freescale, Broadcom and STMicrosystems in that order. Together these five generated around 69% of the total revenues generated by cellular chip sales.

Compared to 2Q 2007, revenues and shipments for the cellular chip market were up by 8% q-o-q. Qualcomm was the only chip manufacturer which saw some increase in the revenue shares among the top 5 cellular chip vendors. Perhaps the reason behind this could be the decreasing average margins per chip in the GSM space, and that would not have affected Qualcomm with the vendor being into CDMA.

Cellular Chips 3Q07 section of the upcoming quarterly chip update tracks the shipment of chips that are mainly used in handsets and core network elements in cellular technologies that include GSM, CDMA, and 3G.

Metalink 3Q07 Update

Metalink had revenues of $3.9 million for 3Q 2007. This was sequentially up by 56% compared to 2Q 2007. All the revenues came from xDSL chips except the $200,000 generated from production sales of WLANPlus chipsets. This was the first quarter which saw the first WLANPlus production shipment. These were shipped to an ODM. The net loss during the period registered was $5.2 million.

Europe and Israel contributed around 57% of the entire quarter revenues while North America brought in around 35%. Asia contributed 8% of the revenues. The 10% customers for the quarter were ECI and ADC.

The Video over 802.11n market started getting traction with some manufacturers in Europe, NAM and Asia starting off volume production of STBs. Another achievement on this side is that some of the TV makers in Japan have started working with Metalink to develop integrated 802.11n Digital TVs. These two items are expected to generate significant volume deployments for Metalink’s 802.11n chipset.

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PMC-Sierra 3Q07 Update

PMC-Sierra’s revenues for the quarter were $117.5 up by over 12% compared to Q2. Of the total revenue Optical chips contributed the main chunk with estimated revenues of $85 million which it generated by shipping over 3.62 million such chips in the quarter. Optical chip constituted around 72% of the revenues.

Revenues for the period saw improvement due to activities in wireline business. FTTH and MIPS related micro processor business showed a slight decline this quarter. The other business, enterprise storage, also improved during the quarter.

By region, Asia contributed 67% of the business followed by North America with 20% of the business. Europe brought in 10% of the business.

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November 13, 2007

TSMC 3Q07 Update

Revenues for the 3Q 2007 touched $2.7 billion up by around $400 million compared to 2Q 2007. Total shipments for the period were 2.2 million units (all 8” wafers now). Shipments for the quarter were up by around 20%. 66% of the quarter’s production was consumed by fabless/system customers while IDMs consumed the remaining 34%.

Geographically North America accounted for majority of the sales: 74%. Asia followed in sales with 13% of total. Europe accounted for 10% of the sales. Japan contributed 3% of the sales.

Communications segment continues to be major sales contributor segment for TSMC. In 3Q 2007, around 42% of the sales came from this segment. Other segments contributing to the quarter revenues were Computer 32%, Consumer 17%, Memory 5% and others 4%.

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November 12, 2007

Optical Networking chips market worth $264.5 million in 3Q07

Optical Networking chips generated an estimated $264.5 million during 3Q 2007. That represents growth of about 6% q-o-q. PMC-Sierra led with market share of just under 32% which is roughly the same share as in last quarter.

Top 5 vendors in optical networking chip market - PMC-Sierra, Teknovus, Broadlight, Ikanos and Conexant accounted for an estimated 53% of the total revenues during the quarter, which again is somewhat similar to their combined share in 2Q07.

Unit wise the top 5 vendors supplied 57% of the total consumption during the quarter.

Since optical networking deployments of carriers have not yet translated into a mass end-user service, the chipset contribution on CPE side is just around 20%. The rest comes from the chips consumed in core optical networking devices.

November 8, 2007

Sequans 3Q07 Update

Revenues in the 3Q07 were $4.3 million. In terms of units of chips sold, this quarter saw the highest number in 2007 with estimated shipments of around 160,000. Of these, around 16,000 chips were for base stations for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX while the remaining 144,000 chips went into subscriber stations. The total number of chips shipped for Fixed WiMAX were estimated at 135,000 while around 25,000 chips were for Mobile WiMAX during the quarter.

The total number of customers at the end of the quarter is 26 but the company did sign up many existing customers for other solutions mainly for the Mobile WiMAX chips. During the quarter WiNetworks launched WiN7000 compact Base Station using SQN2130 Mobile WiMAX Base Station ASIC. Telsima India also chose Sequans chips for StarMAX product line. It ordered around 100,000 chips for subscriber station and another 10,000 for base stations to deploy WiMAX with Tier I operators in India. Other selections were by Alvarion for mobile WiMAX chips for Pico Base Stations and SOMA Networks selecting SQN2130 base chip for FlexMAX mobile WiMAX system.

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November 7, 2007

SMIC 3Q07 Comm Chip Update

Of the $391.4 million total revenues in 3Q 2007, communications chip manufacturing accounted for about 50%. Sequentially SMIC had a growth of 9.3% on q-o-q basis. Most of the communications chip revenues were generated from handset chips that it manufactures for chip vendors. Gross margins for the quarter stood at 10.8%. The company posted a net loss of $25.6 million during the period. However the loss was mainly due to severe price decline in the DRAM market which is the other focus area of SMIC.

During the quarter major customers continued to be Broadcom, TI and Qualcomm. SMIC entered into an agreement in 3Q07 with memory silicon manufacturer Qimonda for manufacturing DRAMs exclusively for them. Qimonda is a major supplier of memory chips for communication devices like cellular handsets. The quarter also saw collaboration with Cadence for RF Design Kit for Wireless IC.