[ADI on Asia impact and DSP differentiation]
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Analog Devices CEO Says Asia Woes Won't Affect Near-Term Business
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Analog Devices Inc. Chief Executive and President Jerald G. Fishman said Thursday although the company generates more than 20% of its revenue in the Asia-Pacific region, the market's turmoil won't have a very large effect on Analog Devices' business in the near term.
The impact will be minimal because most of the communication products that use Analog Devices' chipsets and are manufactured in the Asia-Pacific region are exported to outside markets, Fishman said in an interview on CNBC-TV. The chief executive said 10% of the revenue of the Norwood, Mass.-based digital integrated circuits designer is derived from Southeast Asia and another 12% to 13% from Japan.
Fishman said the company's chip that integrates all analog and digital signal processing technology is "a significant achievement" that can be used in a variety of high-speed Internet-access devices including cable modems and asymmetrical digital subscriber line (ADSL) modems.
The integrated chip, which is in its early stages of production, will initially be used by Santa Clara, Calif.-based computer-networking company 3Com Corp. (COMS) in its 56K modems. The integrated chip will replace the five to seven chips typically found in such modems, Fishman said.
Fishman said Analog Devices' strategy for differentiating itself from other suppliers of digital signal processing chips, such as Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc. (TXN) and Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent Technologies Inc. (LU), is to integrate analog and digital signal processing technology on a single chip.
Fishman said the goal of Analog Devices (ADI) for fiscal 1998 revenue growth is 25%. In fiscal 1997, ended last month, the company's revenue grew 4% to $1.24 billion, from $1.19 billion the previous year.
Fishman noted the significance of those semiconductor companies that gained any type of growth in the difficult 1997 period over the 1996 boom year. "In the early half of 1997, things were pretty poor as the channels filled with inventory and demand slackened," he said. |
