Lattice Semiconductor
Encyclopedia
Lattice Semiconductor Corporation is a United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 based manufacturer of high-performance programmable logic device
Programmable logic device
A programmable logic device or PLD is an electronic component used to build reconfigurable digital circuits. Unlike a logic gate, which has a fixed function, a PLD has an undefined function at the time of manufacture...

s (FPGAs, CPLD
CPLD
A complex programmable logic device is a programmable logic device with complexity between that of PALs and FPGAs, and architectural features of both. The building block of a CPLD is the macrocell, which contains logic implementing disjunctive normal form expressions and more specialized logic...

s, & SPLD
Simple programmable logic device
A simple programmable logic device is a programmable logic device with complexity below that of a complex programmable logic device .The term commonly refers to devices such as ROMs, PALs, PLAs and GALs....

s). Founded in 1983, the company employs about 700 people and has annual revenues of around $300 million, with Darin Billerbeck as the chief executive officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

. The Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

 based company is the number four ranked company in world market share for field-programmable gate array (FPGA) devices, and number two for CPLD
CPLD
A complex programmable logic device is a programmable logic device with complexity between that of PALs and FPGAs, and architectural features of both. The building block of a CPLD is the macrocell, which contains logic implementing disjunctive normal form expressions and more specialized logic...

s & SPLDs. The company went public in 1989 and is traded on the NASDAQ
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

 stock exchange.

History

Lattice was founded on April 3, 1983, by C. Norman Winningstad
Norm Winningstad
C. Norman Winningstad was an American engineer and businessman in the state of Oregon. A native of California, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II before working at what is now Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory...

, Rahul Sud, and Ray Capece. Winningstad, Harry Merlo, Tom Moyer, and John Piacentini
Plaid Pantry
Plaid Pantry is a chain of privately-owned convenience stores based in Beaverton, Oregon, USA. Of one hundred seven locations, three are in the Seattle, Washington area, eight are near Salem, and the balance are in the Portland metropolitan area.- Ownership :...

 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
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

 in 1983 and reincorporated in Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...

 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
Hillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County. Lying in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city is home to many high-technology companies, such as Intel, that compose what has become known as the...

, from what was then an unincorporated area near Beaverton
Beaverton, Oregon
Beaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, seven miles west of Portland in the Tualatin River Valley.As of the 2010 census, the population is 90,267. This makes it the second-largest city in the county and Oregon's sixth-largest city...

.

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
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

 after in initial public offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...

. 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
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

 rights in the term Silicon Forest
Silicon Forest
Silicon Forest is a nickname for the cluster of high-tech companies located in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. states of Oregon and Southwest Washington, and most frequently refers to the industrial corridor between Beaverton and Hillsboro in northwest Oregon.The name is similar to...

 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
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

ranked the company as their 162nd best small company in the United States in 1996.

In 1996, Lattice began expansions at its Hillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County. Lying in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city is home to many high-technology companies, such as Intel, that compose what has become known as the...

, 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
Agere Systems
Agere Systems Inc. was an integrated circuit components company based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Spun out of Lucent Technologies in 2002, Agere was merged into LSI Corporation in 2007....

'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
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

. 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 was named the new CEO in October of that year, starting in November. The company reported net income of $13 million on revenues of nearly $84 million for the first quarter of 2011.

Operations

In addition to CPLD
CPLD
A complex programmable logic device is a programmable logic device with complexity between that of PALs and FPGAs, and architectural features of both. The building block of a CPLD is the macrocell, which contains logic implementing disjunctive normal form expressions and more specialized logic...

s & SPLDs, Lattice also manufactures field-programmable gate array
Field-programmable gate array
A field-programmable gate array is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by the customer or designer after manufacturing—hence "field-programmable"...

s (FPGAs), programmable mixed-signal and interconnect products, related software and intellectual property
Semiconductor intellectual property core
In electronic design a semiconductor intellectual property core, IP core, or IP block is a reusable unit of logic, cell, or chip layout design that is the intellectual property of one party. IP cores may be licensed to another party or can be owned and used by a single party alone...

 (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) and the ispLEVER software. At the 90nm 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
Hillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County. Lying in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city is home to many high-technology companies, such as Intel, that compose what has become known as the...

, in the high-tech area known as the Silicon Forest
Silicon Forest
Silicon Forest is a nickname for the cluster of high-tech companies located in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. states of Oregon and Southwest Washington, and most frequently refers to the industrial corridor between Beaverton and Hillsboro in northwest Oregon.The name is similar to...

. The company employs 700 people worldwide, with approximately 250 of those at company headquarters. Darin Billerbeck is Lattices's chief executive officer. Among its chief competitors are Xilinx
Xilinx
Xilinx, Inc. is a supplier of programmable logic devices. It is known for inventing the field programmable gate array and as the first semiconductor company with a fabless manufacturing model....

, Altera
Altera
Altera Corporation is a Silicon Valley manufacturer of PLDs . The company offered its first programmable logic device in 1984. PLDs can be reprogrammed during the design cycle as well as in the field to perform multiple functions, and they support a fairly fast design process...

, Actel
Actel
Actel Corporation is a manufacturer of nonvolatile, low-power FPGAs, mixed-signal FPGAs, and programmable logic solutions...

 and QuickLogic
QuickLogic
QuickLogic Corporation is a manufacturer of Customer Specific Standard Products, or CSSP.Until 2007 they were a supplier of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays based on antifuse technology, making the devices one-time programmable...

.

External links

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