Altera Announces Record Third Quarter Results

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) today announced third quarter sales of $527.5 million, up 12 percent from the second quarter of 2010 and up 84 percent from the third quarter of 2009. New product sales increased 24 percent sequentially. Third quarter net income was $217.5 million, $0.69 per diluted share, compared with net income of $180.6 million, $0.58 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2010 and $56.7 million, $0.19 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2009.

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Year-to-date cash flow from operating activities was $646.5 million. Altera ended the quarter with $2.4 billion in cash and short-term investments.

Altera's board of directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share payable on December 1, 2010 to stockholders of record on November 10, 2010.

"The combination of a step up in telecom and wireless demand and stellar new product growth created another quarter of double-digit sales gains for Altera. The 53 percent sequential growth we saw in our 40-nm FPGAs demonstrates the attractiveness of Altera's FPGAs in today's marketplace," said John Daane, president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board. "We are in the final stages of development for our initial 28-nm FPGAs and believe that the unique architectural features and performance we offer will extend our current 40-nm technology leadership to this next process node."

Several recent accomplishments mark the company's continuing progress:

• Altera has reached a significant milestone in the development of its next-generation 28-nm FPGA by becoming the first company to successfully demonstrate 25-Gbps transceiver performance in programmable logic. Altera achieved this milestone in its 28-nm Stratix® V transceiver test chip, a prototyping platform that Altera developed, leveraging its close relationship with foundry partner TSMC. Reaching the 25-Gbps milestone more than doubles the transceiver performance in currently available FPGA solutions, and rivals or exceeds the abilities of competing ASSP offerings. Today, Altera is the only company shipping production FPGAs with transceivers operating at 11.3 Gbps. Being the first vendor to reach the 25-Gbps milestone further extends Altera's leadership in transceiver technology.
• Altera has launched its Embedded Initiative which offers a new system-level integration tool that provides a single FPGA design flow supporting a range of embedded processor offerings based on ARM®, Intel®, and MIPS® architectures, as well as Altera's Nios® II processor. This initiative will expand Altera's current embedded partner programs by embracing the broad ecosystems from ARM, Intel, and MIPS, as well as the FPGA world. Intel previously announced a new configurable Atom®-based processor that pairs an Altera® FPGA with an Intel E600 series Atom processor in a multi-chip single package solution. In addition, Altera has unveiled an agreement with ARM to license a range of technologies, including the Cortex™-A9 microprocessor. In early 2011 Altera will broaden its soft-processor cores to include the MIPS Technologies MIPS32® processor which will complement Altera's current Nios II soft-core processor. The combination of FPGAs and processors has the potential to create new levels of customization in embedded system design, and Altera's single design flow reduces overall system design cost, achieves fast time to market, and increases design flexibility.

Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call

A conference call will be held today at 1:45 p.m. Pacific Time to discuss the quarter's results and management's current business outlook. The web cast and subsequent replay will be available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.altera.com. A telephonic replay of the call may be accessed later in the day by calling (719) 457-0820 and referencing confirmation code 258712. The telephonic replay will be available for two weeks following the live call.

Fourth Quarter Update, 2011 Guidance and Conference Call

Altera's fourth quarter business update will be issued in a press release available after the market close on November 29, 2010. In addition, the press release will contain Altera's 2011 guidance.  Further, the company will schedule a conference call at 1:45 p.m. Pacific Time on November 29, 2010 to discuss Altera's 2011 guidance and fourth quarter update. The web cast and replay will be publicly available and accessible through the Investor Relations section of the company's web site at www.altera.com.

Forward-Looking Statements  

Statements in this press release that are not historical are "forward-looking statements" as the term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are generally written in the future tense and/or preceded by words such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," or other words that imply or predict a future state. Forward-looking statements include any projection of revenue, gross margin, expense or other financial items discussed in the Business Outlook section of this press release, the potential for continued technology leadership at 28 nm, and the timing of the availability of the MIPS32 processor. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements in this release involve risks and uncertainty that can cause actual results to differ from those currently anticipated, due to a number of factors, including without limitation, current global economic conditions, customer business environment, customer inventory levels, vertical market mix, market acceptance of the company's products, product introduction schedules, the rate of growth of the company's new products including Arria® II, Cyclone® III, Stratix® III, Stratix IV FPGAs, MAX® II CPLDs and HardCopy® device families, changes in the mix of our business between prototyping and production-based demand, as well as changes in economic conditions and other risk factors discussed in documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from time to time. Copies of Altera's SEC filings are posted on the company's website and are available from the company without charge. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this release, and, except as required by law, the company does not undertake an obligation to update its forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

About Altera

Altera programmable solutions enable system and semiconductor companies to rapidly and cost-effectively innovate, differentiate and win in their markets. Find out more about Altera's FPGA, CPLD and ASIC devices at www.altera.com. Follow Altera via Facebook, RSS and Twitter.

ALTERA, ARRIA, CYCLONE, HARDCOPY, MAX, NIOS, QUARTUS, STRATIX and all other words that are identified as trademarks are, unless noted otherwise, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. and/or trademarks of Altera Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. ARM, CORTEX are the trademarks of ARM Limited in the EU and other countries. Intel and Atom are trademarks of Intel in the U.S. and other countries. MIPS and MIPS32 are the trademarks of MIPS Technologies in the U.S. and other countries. All other product or service names are the property of their respective holders.

Product Category Description

• New Products include the Stratix® III, Stratix IV (including E, GX and GT), Arria® II GX, Cyclone® III, Cyclone IV (including E and GX), MAX® II, HardCopy® III, and HardCopy IV devices.
• Mainstream Products include the Stratix II (and GX), Arria GX, Cyclone II, and HardCopy II devices.
• Mature and Other Products include the Stratix (and GX), Cyclone, Classic™, MAX 3000A, MAX 7000, MAX 7000A, MAX 7000B, MAX 7000S, MAX 9000, HardCopy, FLEX® series, APEX™ series, Mercury™, and Excalibur™ devices, configuration and other devices, intellectual property cores, and software and other tools.

SOURCE Altera Corporation