Lattice Semiconductor

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Lattice Semiconductor Corporation is an American semiconductor company specializing in the design and manufacturing of low power field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Headquartered in the Silicon Forest area of Hillsboro, Oregon,<ref name="Chappatta"/> the company also has operations in San Jose, Calif.,<ref name="Lattice Website">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Shanghai,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Manila,<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> Penang,<ref name="Lattice Website"/> and Singapore.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Lattice Semiconductor has more than 1000 employees and an annual revenue of more than $660 million as of 2022.<ref name="annual 2019">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The company was founded in 1983 and went public in 1989. It is traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the symbol LSCC.

HistoryEdit

Founding and early growthEdit

Lattice was founded on April 3, 1983, by C. Norman Winningstad, Rahul Sud, and Ray Capece,<ref name="founding">Template:Cite news</ref> with investment from Winningstad, Harry Merlo, Tom Moyer, and John Piacentini.<ref name="founding" /> Lattice was incorporated in Oregon in 1983 and reincorporated in Delaware in 1985. Co-founder Sud left as president in December 1986, and Winningstad left in 1991 as chairman of the board.<ref name="founding" /> Early struggles led to chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in July 1987.<ref name="founding" /> The company emerged from bankruptcy after 62 days and moved from its headquarters in an unincorporated area near Beaverton to a smaller building in Hillsboro, Oregon.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Over the next year, the company shrank from 140 to 64 employees but posted record revenues.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Cyrus Tsui became the company's chief executive officer in 1988.<ref name="all">Template:Cite news</ref> On November 9, 1989, Lattice became a publicly traded company when its shares were listed on the NASDAQ after in initial public offering.<ref name="IPO">Template:Cite news</ref> The initial share price was $6, and raised almost $14 million for the company.<ref name="IPO"/> In July 1990, a second stock offering of nearly 1.5 million new shares raised $22.6 million at $16.25 per share.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref name="sf">Template:Cite news</ref> They had registered the mark in 1985, but later conceded they could not prevent the usage of the term as a noun.<ref name="sf"/> Forbes ranked the company as their 162nd best small company in the United States in 1996,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Lattice began to double the size of its Hillsboro headquarters.<ref name="all" />

In 2000, annual revenues topped $560 million with profits of $160 million.<ref name="report2007">Template:Cite news</ref> Its stock price reached an all-time high of $41.34, adjusted for splits.<ref name="report2007"/> For the next five years, however, the company recorded no annual profit.

Acquisitions and leadership changesEdit

File:LatticeSemi.JPG

Former company headquarters in Portland, Oregon

Lattice purchased Agere Corporation's FPGA division in 2002.<ref name="good">Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref name="usdcom">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2005, Tsui was replaced as CEO by Steve Skaggs<ref name="good" /> and the company laid off employees for the first time.<ref name="good" /> In fiscal year 2006, Lattice posted a profit of $3.1 million on revenues of $245.5 million, the first annual profit since 2000.<ref name="PBJ">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In June 2008, Bruno Guilmart was named as chief executive officer of the company, replacing Steve Skaggs.<ref name="ceo">Template:Cite news</ref> For fiscal year 2008, Lattice had a loss of $32 million on annual revenues of $222.3 million.<ref name="annual2009">Template:Cite news</ref> In 2009, the company began moving all of its warehouse operations for parts from Oregon to Singapore.<ref name="move">Template:Cite news</ref> Through July 2009, the company had lost money for ten straight quarters,<ref name="ten">Template:Cite news</ref> and had its first profitable quarter in three years during the fourth quarter of 2009.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Bruno Guilmart left the company in August 2010, and Darin Billerbeck, former Zilog CEO, who had just sold Zilog in the previous year, was named the new CEO in October of that year, starting in November.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The company reported 2011 revenue of $318 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Lattice started a stock buy-back program in 2010 that continued into 2012 that would total about $35 million if fully implemented.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2011, the company was ranked third among the world's makers of field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices<ref>FPGA Developer, July 15, 2011 List and comparison of FPGA companies</ref> and second for CPLDs & SPLDs.<ref name="reed">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On December 9, 2011, Lattice announced it was acquiring SiliconBlue for $63.2 million in cash.<ref>Mike Rogoway, The Oregonian. "As sales slide, Lattice Semiconductor pays $62 million for Silicon Valley mobile chip company." Dec 9, 2011. Retrieved Dec 19, 2012.</ref><ref>Maxfield, Clive, Programmable Logic DesignLine, December 9, 2011 OMG! Lattice Semiconductor to acquire SiliconBlue!</ref><ref>Morris, Kevin, EE Journal, Silicon Symbiosis-Lattice Acquires SiliconBlue, December 13, 2011 Silicon Symbiosis</ref> Lattice announced in July 2012 a foundry agreement with United Microelectronics Corporation.<ref>Siemers, Eric, Portland Business Journal, October 18, 2012 Lattice Semiconductor to cut 109 jobs, 30 in Hillsboro</ref> Lattice returned to profitability in 2013 with a profit of $22.3 million on $332.5 million in revenues.<ref name=FY2013>Template:Cite news</ref> The company acquired Silicon Image Inc. for $606 million in March 2015<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and moved company headquarters to Downtown Portland.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Activity since 2016Edit

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.<ref>By Eva Dou and Robert McMillan, Wall Street Journal. "China’s Tsinghua Unigroup Buys Small Stake in U.S. Chip Maker Lattice." April 14, 2016. May 4, 2016.</ref> In November, 2016, Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, a private equity firm backed by China Reform Holdings Corporation announced a definitive agreement to acquire all of Lattice's shares.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The purchase of Lattice by Canyon Bridge was in September 2017 blocked by US President Donald Trump based on the recommendation of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States on national security grounds under the Exon–Florio Amendment.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news Alt URL</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The company re-located its headquarters back to its Hillsboro campus in 2019.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Activist investor Lion Point Capital purchased a six percent stake in Lattice in February 2018.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The next month the company filled three new seats on its board with independent directors supported by Lion Point.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> That same year, Lattice replaced several members of its leadership team, including bringing in a new president and CEO, Jim Anderson, who previously worked at Advanced Micro Devices.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Under the new leadership, Lattice shifted the company's focus entirely to low-power field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).<ref name="Kanaval">Template:Cite news</ref> Lattice acquired computer vision software company Mirametrix in November 2021.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Jim Anderson left Lattice in June 2024, at which time Lattice Chief Strategy and Marketing office Esam Elashmawi was appointed Interim CEO. On September 16, 2024, Lattice named Ford Tamer as CEO.

ProductsEdit

Template:See also Lattice primarily focuses on small, efficient low-power field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Kanaval"/> It also sells programmable mixed-signal and interconnect products, related software and intellectual property (IP),<ref>Clive Maxfield, EE Times. "Lattice enhances its wireless base station portfolio." Jun 23, 2008. Retrieved June 15, 2012.</ref> for applications from edge computing<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> to cloud computing.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Lattice's main products are those based on its Lattice Nexus small FPGA platform<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Lattice Avant mid-range FPGA platform.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Lattice products are used in a variety of end uses across the communication, computing (client and datacenter), industrial, automotive, and consumer electronics markets.<ref name="ceo"/>

Lattice's software offerings include design tools Diamond,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Radiant,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Propel.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It also provides solution stacks designed to provide its customers with application-specific toolkits to help them more easily and quickly design with Lattice technology. As of 2023, these include Lattice mVision, designed for machine vision in power-constrained designs;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Lattice sensAI, designed to integrate machine learning into internet of things applications;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Lattice Automate, designed to facilitate industrial applications like robotics and real-time networking in settings like automated factories and warehouses;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Lattice Sentry, for security;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Lattice Drive for automotive applications.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

OperationsEdit

The company is headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon, in the high-tech area known as the Silicon Forest.<ref name="Chappatta">Brian Chappatta, Bloomberg Businessweek. "Silicon Forest Baseball Wager Penalizes Oregon City: Muni Credit." Sep 25, 2012. Retrieved Dec 21, 2012.</ref> The company employs more than 1000 people worldwide as of 2023. Ford Tamer is Lattice's chief executive officer. Its chief competitors are Xilinx (a subsidiary of AMD) and Intel (former Altera business).<ref>John Edwards (June 1, 2006). "No room for Second Place Template:Webarchive." EDN. Retrieved May 10, 2012.</ref> After AMD completed the acquisition of Xilinx in February 2022, Lattice Semiconductor became the last fully independent major manufacturer of FPGAs.