Drop of just 1% in sales revenue for Actel in 4Q08

When every leading semiconductor vendor is experiencing double digit percentage of revenue drop in 4th Quarter of 2008, Actel looks to be less effected by the recession wth just 1% revenue decline in 4th quarter of 08 in comparison to 3rd quarter of 08. Actel reported net revenues of $52.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2008, up 2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 and down 1 percent from the third quarter of 2008. For the full fiscal year, net revenues were $218.4 million, up 11 percent from fiscal 2007. Actel develops Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) semiconductor devices.

However the business outlook for next quarter is not that prettier, Company expects a revenue decline of 10 to 15% sequentially in the next quarter. Actel has planned cut down its expenses so that profit will become more important than revenue growth.

The result of Altera, Xilinx and Actel shows programmable logic (FPGA, PLD) semiconductor device business is not that bad as other semiconductor devices. FPGA devices are hardly used in consumer and automotive applications, the areas which are most hit by present recession. They are used is defense, industrial, and automation applications.