67 WALL STREET, New York - June 8, 2012 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Semiconductors Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This special feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.
Topics covered: Improvement from Cyclical Bottom - Semiconductor Capital Equipment Spending - New Computing Platform Demand - Chip Manufacturing Technology
Companies include: Apple's (AAPL); Brooks Automation (BRKS); Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS); ARM (ARMH); ASML (ASML); and many more.
In the following brief excerpt from the Semiconductors Report, expert analysts discuss the outlook for the sector and for investors.
Louis DiNardo was appointed President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Exar Corporation in January 2012. Before joining Exar, he was a Partner at Crosslink Capital, a stage-independent venture capital and growth equity firm based in San Francisco, which he joined in January 2008, and focused on semiconductor and alternative energy technology investment in private companies. Mr. DiNardo was a Partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners from January 2007 to January 2008. He was President and Chief Operating Officer at Intersil Corporation from January 2006 to October 2006. Before his promotion, Mr. DiNardo held the position of Executive Vice President of the power management business.
TWST: Would you give us a brief overview and history of Exar Corporation?
Mr. DiNardo: Exar Corporation (EXAR) is a fabless semiconductor company. We provide highly differentiated solutions and components to the industrial and embedded systems markets, as well as communications infrastructure, networking and storage. Our product portfolio includes power management and connectivity components, communications products, network security and storage optimization solutions. The company was founded in 1972, so we are celebrating our 40th year serving the semiconductor industry. Our primary focus and our drive are in the high-performance analog/mixed-signal market - a market that is target-rich in growth opportunities. The mixed-signal market is an exceptional segment of the semiconductor industry as it has historically captured the highest multiple earnings and revenue in both cyclically up and down markets. Consistent performance in this market is highly valued and is predicated on differentiation and diversity.
TWST: Who are some of your customers?
Mr. DiNardo: We serve literally thousands of customers. Across that wide range of end markets, I noted, there is a top tier of customers: Huawei in China, ZTE in China, Lucent-Alcatel in Europe, Cisco here in the U.S.; as well as just about every electronic systems manufacturer you can think of in the industrial control space, such as Allen-Bradley, Honeywell and Rosemont - those types of companies.
TWST: In addition to the continuing consolidation in the semi space, what do you believe will be some of the significant trends, developments or changes in your sector of the market over the next three to five years?
Mr. DiNardo: In our view, a great deal of growth will be driven by the evolving trend of devices communicating with each other and using the Internet as the communication highway. An example of this would be using a Web browser as the interface for device-to-device connections. Real world examples occur in industrial equipment, everything from tractors to factories, and devices in your home, whether it's your alarm system, your surveillance system, your iPad acting as an interface device for all kinds of things in your life, all going up through the cloud into a network environment. This is going to drive a great deal of proliferation for the kinds of components we make. These devices will drive a higher chip content, which will require more analog/mixed-signal chips.
TWST: What strategies will Exar put into place to respond to these developments?
Mr. DiNardo: We'll take our core competency specific to the wired world, and we'll apply the same kinds of techniques to these wireless devices. Additionally, we are very focused on how we can help alleviate the burden of all of the storage that is required for this data. We play a big role in compression and acceleration of data as it goes up into the cloud. So we'll utilize our expertise, and we'll develop compression algorithms and implement them in hardware and software to help alleviate this burden.
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