Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : RF Micro Devices (RFMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tuck who wrote (4078)	2/13/2002 2:23:02 AM
From: A. Edwards	Respond to of 4849

Merrill reiterated BUY on RFMD: Merrill Lynch & Co. 12 February, 2002 Yesterday, RF Micro Devices introduced its Polaris RF chipset, which is one of the few complete RF systems for handset. The Polaris chipset includes the four RF components needed in a handset - a receiver, a direct conversion transceiver, an integrated switch/SAW filter module and a power amplifier module. RFMD manufactures everything but the integrated switch and RF SAW filter module for the chipset. The Polaris chipset is priced under $10.00 and we believe RFMD has approximately $8.50 of content per chipset. Sampling has already begun with volume shipments expected to begin in the December quarter of 2002. We believe this chipset represents a significant cost benefit to cell phone providers as the average RF section of a cell phone contains approximately 120 different components and costs around $20. RFMD’s solution contains approximately 18 components and is priced over 50% below current solutions. We believe this new chipset further strengthens RFMD already formidable market leading position in the handset market. With content of $8.50, this product triples RFMD’s maximum content per cell phone and generates higher-than-company-average gross margins. We estimate sales of these products could total approximately $50 million during C03. We believe Conexant is the only competitor with a complete RF chipset with several other companies such as Philips and Infineon offering partial solutions. However, we would note that Conexant’s comparable solution appears to be priced over $10.00, above RFMD’s solution, and has approximately 50 components versus the 18 components in RFMD’s Polaris chipset. We are reiterating our intermediate-term Buy and long-term Strong Buy ratings on RFMD as we believe the risk/reward ratio for the stock is very favorable for investors with a twelve-month time horizon.