Lattice Semiconductor

History

Lattice was founded on April 3, 1983, by C. Norman Winningstad, Rahul Sud and Ray Capece. Winningstad, Harry Merlo, Tom Moyer, and John Piacentini were the early investors in the company. Co-founder Sud left as president in December 1986, and Winningstad left in 1991 as chairman of the board. Lattice was incorporated in Oregon in 1983 and reincorporated in Delaware in 1985. Early struggles led to chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in July 1987. The company emerged from bankruptcy after 62 days and moved into a smaller headquarters in Hillsboro, Oregon, from what was then an unincorporated area near Beaverton.

The next year the company posted then record revenues while shrinking from 140 employees to 75 employees after the bankruptcy. Cyrus Tsui became the company's chief executive officer in 1988. On November 9, 1989, Lattice became a publicly traded company when its shares were listed on the NASDAQ after in initial public offering. The initial share price was $6, and raised almost $14 million in capital for the company. In July 1990, Lattice raised an additional $22.6 million from a second stock offering, selling nearly 1.5 million new shares at $16.25 per share.

In 1995, the company attempted to assert trademark rights in the term Silicon Forest beyond the use of its trademark for the use in semiconductor devices. They had registered the mark in 1985, but later conceded they could not prevent the usage of the term as a noun. Forbes ranked the company as their 162nd best small company in the United States in 1996.

In 1996, Lattice began expansions at its Hillsboro, Oregon, headquarters to double the size of the facility. The company grew to annual revenues of more than $560 million and profits in excess of $160 million in 2000. Its stock price reached an all-time high that year of $41.34 per share, as adjusted for stock splits. Lattice purchased Agere Corporation's FPGA division in 2002. Steve Skaggs was hired as CEO in 2005, replacing Cyrus Tsui. That year, Lattice had layoffs for the first time in company history. For fiscal year 2006, Lattice posted a profit of $3.1 million on revenues of $245.5 million, this was the first annual profit for the company since 2000.

In 2004, the company settled charges with the United States government that it had illegally exported certain technologies to China, paying a fine of $560,000. In June 2008, Bruno Guilmart was named as chief executive officer of the company, replacing Steve Skaggs. For fiscal year 2008, Lattice had a loss of $32 million on annual revenues of $222.3 million. In 2009, the company began moving all of its warehouse operations for parts from Oregon to Singapore. Through July 2009, the company had lost money for ten straight quarters, and had its first profitable quarter in three years during the fourth quarter of 2009. Bruno Guilmart left the company in August 2010, and Darin Billerbeck who just sold Zilog in last year, was named the new CEO in October of that year, starting in November. The company reported 2011 revenue of $318 million. For the first quarter of 2012 Lattice reported revenue of $71.7 million. Lattice reported revenue of $70.8 million for the second quarter of 2012. Lattice started a stock buy-back program in 2010 that continued into 2012 that would total about $35 million if fully implemented.

On December 9, 2011, Lattice announced it was acquiring SiliconBlue for $63.2 million in cash. Lattice announced in July 2012 a foundry agreement with United Microelectronics Corporation. In October 2012, the company announced third quarter revenue of $70.9 million and restructuring that included job lay-offs. Lattice returned to profitability in 2013 with a profit of $22.3 million on $332.5 million in revenues. The company acquired Silicon Image Inc. for $606 million in March 2015 and moved company headquarters to Downtown Portland.

In April 2016, Tsinghua Holdings said in a U.S. filing that it accumulated a roughly 6 percent stake in Lattice Semiconductor through share purchased on the open market.

Operations

In addition to CPLDs & SPLDs, Lattice also manufactures field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmable mixed-signal and interconnect products, related software and intellectual property (IP). Lattice's main products are the ECP and XP series of FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays), the Mach series of CPLDs (complex programmable logic devices), the ispPAC POWR series of programmable power management products (programmable mixed signal FPAA) and Lattice Diamond design software. At the 90 nm node, Lattice offers a variety of FPGA devices. Products are used in a variety of end uses, such as flat-panel televisions and laptops.

The company is headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon, in the high-tech area known as the Silicon Forest. The company employs 700 people worldwide, with approximately 250 of those at company headquarters. Darin Billerbeck is Lattice's chief executive officer and president. Its chief competitors are Xilinx, Altera and Microsemi (previously Actel.)