SAN JOSE, Calif.--July 15, 2008--Altera
Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) today announced second quarter sales of
$359.9 million, up 7 percent from the first quarter of 2008 and up 13
percent from the second quarter of 2007. Second quarter net income was
$98.0 million, $0.32 per diluted share, up from net income of $83.9
million, $0.27 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2008. Second
quarter net income was up 22 percent and earnings per diluted share
were up 43 percent compared with the second quarter of 2007.
First half cash flow from operating activities was $226.8 million.
Altera repurchased 65,000 shares of its common stock during the second
quarter at a cost of $1.4 million. To date during the third quarter,
Altera has repurchased an additional 526,000 shares at a cost of $10.4
million. Altera ended the second quarter with $1.2 billion in cash and
investments.
Altera's board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of
$0.05 per share payable on September 2, 2008 to shareholders of record
on August 11, 2008.
"The second quarter exceeded our expectations for growth and
profitability. Our 90-nm FPGAs were the largest growth drivers and
65-nm FPGA sales more than doubled sequentially, leading to FPGA
growth of 18 percent year over year. The combination of solid top line
growth, continued gross margin improvement, and lower than planned
operating expense created significant operating leverage and a very
strong operating margin," said John Daane, president, chief executive
officer, and chairman of the board. "We are on schedule to ship the
industry's first 40-nm Stratix IV FPGAs later this year, the result of
work we began several years ago to accelerate the availability of
40-nm programmable logic devices. The architectural and process
leadership that these products represent will further strengthen our
competitive position and growth prospects over the next several
years."
Several recent accomplishments mark the company's continuing
progress.
Altera has announced the industry's first 40-nm FPGAs and
HardCopy(R) ASICs, and hundreds of early adopter customers have already
begun designs with these devices. Stratix(R) IV FPGAs and HardCopy IV
ASICs, both with a transceiver option, provide unprecedented densities,
performance and low-power leadership. The Stratix IV family has twice
the logic density of Altera's Stratix III family, currently the largest
FPGAs on the market. The HardCopy IV ASIC family offers equivalent
densities as the Stratix IV devices with up to 13.3 million gates.
Manufactured on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's 40-nm
process, the Stratix IV FPGA family is comprised of two variants:
first, Stratix IV E FPGAs, a set of devices rich with memory and
digital signal processing resources, and, in addition, Stratix IV GX
FPGAs, an enhanced version with transceivers. To address the low-power
demands of customers, the Stratix IV family members feature Altera's
Programmable Power Technology.
For the first time, Altera offers a transceiver-based ASIC option with
the new HardCopy IV ASIC family. Stratix FPGAs deliver the benefits of
FPGA-based hardware and software co-design and co- verification --
saving months in time to market -- and the use of HardCopy ASICs
delivers the benefits of ASICs in production. Quartus(R) II development
software fully supports these devices. First sample silicon for the
Stratix IV GX family is expected in the fourth quarter.
With Altera's re-entry into the military market and benefiting
from the company's record of reliability and innovation, military
market customers increasingly have selected Altera for their newest
designs. Altera now has been recognized as the number-one supplier at
Rockwell Collins, a top-tier government electronics contractor. Altera
won the 2008 President's Award, making it the top supplier among the
more than 10,000 Rockwell Collins suppliers. The award is based on
quality, product excellence, delivery schedules, and a team-based
partnership. Altera's devices are today used in a variety of military
market applications including software defined radio, electronic
warfare, secure communications, guidance, radar, and avionics systems.
Altera's programmable solutions enable system and semiconductor
companies to rapidly and cost-effectively innovate, differentiate and
win in their markets. Find out more at www.altera.com.
Altera, The Programmable Solutions Company, the stylized Altera
logo, specific device designations and all other words that are
identified as trademarks and/or service marks are, unless noted
otherwise, the trademarks and service marks of Altera Corporation in
the U.S. and other countries. All other product or service names are
the property of their respective holder.
