And the results are in……

Leading RF front-end chip manufacturers RFMD, Skyworks and TriQuint each released their quarterly earnings last week and the results for each were very encouraging with revenue for the quarter up 29, 44 and 23%, respectively over the same quarter of the previous year .

For its fiscal 2011 first quarter, ended July 3, 2010, RF Micro Devices Inc. posted better-than-expected quarterly results, helped by growing demand for mobile broadband devices, and said it expects its September-quarter results to be in line with its first quarter. The company earned $28.1 million, or 10 cents a share, compared with $4.8 million, or 2 cents a share, a year ago. Excluding items, RF Micro Devices earned 16 cents a share. Revenue rose 29 percent to $273.8 million. "RF Micro Devices is currently on track to grow revenue and achieve double-digit earnings growth this fiscal year," Chief executive Dean Priddy said in a statement.

While on a different fiscal calendar, Skyworks Solutions Inc.'s also announced that its second-quarter net income nearly doubled, propelled by the booming market for mobile phones and other wireless devices that rely on the company's chips. The company indicated the favorable trends are likely to extend into the third quarter; it provided a forecast above analysts' previous estimates.

In the quarter completed July 2, Skyworks said it earned $34.7 million, or 19 cents per share, up from $18.7 million, or 11 cents per share, at the same time last year. If not for certain accounting items, Skyworks said it would have earned 32 cents share. That was two cents better than the average estimate among analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
Revenue for the period increased 44 percent to $275 million, about $6 million above analyst forecasts. In the current quarter, Skyworks expects to earn 37 cents per share, excluding certain items, on revenue of $300 million. Analysts, on average, had predicted earnings of 34 cents per share on revenue of $287.5 million.

TriQuint Semiconductor also reported their financial results for the second quarter which ended July 3, 2010 with revenue for the second quarter at $207.5 million, up 23% from the second quarter of 2009. The company’s Networks products continued to enjoy a strong rebound from the lows of 2009 growing 19% sequentially and 64% year over year. Net income was $22.5 million, or $0.14 per diluted share. Non-GAAP net income was $33.1 million, or $0.20 per diluted share. Gross margin for the second quarter of 2010 was 41.2%, up from 32.3% in the second quarter of 2009. On a non-GAAP basis, gross margin improved for the fifth consecutive quarter to 42.3%, up from 33.2% in the second quarter of 2009. Gross margin improved sequentially due to strong factory utilization, a higher mix of networks and defense product revenue and favorable product mix.

Operating expenses for the second quarter of 2010 were $58.8 million, or 28.3% of revenue, up from $50.3 million, or 29.8% of revenue in the second quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP operating expenses for the quarter were $54.7 million or 26.4% of revenue, up 4.4% sequentially. Most of the increase was in research and development expenses.

IEEE EMC 2010 in Fort Lauderdale

We are at the IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and finished our first day of attending the exhibition. Over 2000 attendees are on site with over 150 exhibitors at the Ft. Lauderdale Convention Center. The primary RF and microwave modeling, design, test/measurement and component companies that offer EMC/EMI solutions are here.

The theme of the 2010 Symposium is "Systems Engineering" and the emphasis is preventing or catching EMC issues early in design with proper modeling and early testing. The technical program is designed cover everything from EMC fundamentals to advanced numerical techniques for prediction and control. There are five days of papers, workshops, tutorials and demonstrations.

The exhibition was very busy for the first couple of hours on the first day but seemed to slow for most of the rest of the day until happy hour. Most exhibitors were happy with the quality of the leads so far so we hope this continues through the week. We are shooting some videos of demonstrations and products from the leading companies and will include them in our show wrap up next week.