Xilinx reports strong results as new products take off

Programmable logic company Xilinx, which employs over 400 in Ireland, has reported strong results for the company’s year-end and fourth quarter.

The company, which has its European headquarters in Dublin, said turnover was up 21% to $1.4bn (€1.17bn) for the year to end April 3, 2004.

Net profit was $303m (€254.5m), up 141% from 2003. This was boosted by a $34.4m (€28.9m) reduction in taxes recognised in Q4 associated with a recent US IRS tax settlement and also a $7m (€5.8m) pre-tax charge from the company's acquisition of Triscend last month.

Wim Roelandts, Xilinx's chairman and chief executive officer said: "New products continued to gain significant momentum in the marketplace during the March quarter, with sales increasing 24% sequentially.This represented 36% of total revenues, up from 23% a year ago."

Xilinx said it expected revenues for its June quarter to increase 5% - 8% from the March quarter.

Xilinx designs and produces highly complex semiconductor chips capable of being programmed individually for use in a wide range of electronic systems.

The company also develops and provides the software tools necessary to programme these chips as well as predefined system functions that customers load as software into Xilinx’s programmable logic devices.