FSA's “On the Fabless Front” Highlights Fabless Companies by Q3 2003 Revenue

QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies, NVIDIA and Broadcom Lead Top Ten

SAN JOSE, Calif. (Nov. 17, 2003) – The Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA), the global voice of fabless and hybrid semiconductor companies and their foundry and supply chain partners, announces the top ten fabless companies by Q3 2003 revenue in its “On the Fabless Front” quarterly publication.

QUALCOMM's CDMA [NASDAQ: QCOM] division led all public fabless companies in revenue for the quarter with $505.4 million. NVIDIA [NASDAQ: NVDA] was second with $486.1 million, while Broadcom [NASDAQ: BRCM] was third with $425.6 million. Others in the top ten included ATI Technologies [NASDAQ: ATYT], Xilinx [NASDAQ: XLNX], MediaTek [Taiwan: 2454.TW], SanDisk [NASDAQ: SNDK], Marvell Technology [NASDAQ: MRVL] (estimated revenue), Altera [NASDAQ: ALTR] and Conexant [NASDAQ: CNXT], respectively.

Fabless revenue during the quarter totaled $4.5 billion, up 7.1% sequentially from $4.2 billion in Q2 2003, and more than 26% year-over-year from the $3.6 billion reported in Q3 2002.

The FSA also recorded 45 fabless companies involved in merger and acquisition deals, totaling more than $2.6 billion to date in 2003. One of the more notable M&A announcements included the $836 million merger of Conexant and GlobespanVirata, announced in early November.

Ten of the year’s acquisitions involved fabless companies acquiring other fabless companies, while 35 acquisitions included fabless companies acquiring other technology (semiconductor and non-semiconductor) companies.

“On the Fabless Front” discusses this information, along with other industry statistics including fabless fundings, fabless financial news, foundry revenues and foundry utilization. For more information, or to purchase this newsletter, visit http://www.fsa.org/store.

About the Fabless Semiconductor Association
The FSA is the global voice of fabless and hybrid semiconductor companies and their foundry and supply chain partners. Incorporated in 1994, the Association (www.fsa.org) is focused on the perpetuation of the fabless business model throughout the worldwide semiconductor industry. The organization encourages the relationship between semiconductor companies and suppliers; facilitates business partnerships; creates awareness of the fabless/outsourced business model; disseminates industry data; and fosters standards and policies.

FSA members include fabless companies, integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), foundry providers, packaging/assembly houses, intellectual property providers, electronic design automation companies, OEMs, photomask companies, design software companies, investment bankers, venture capitalists and other companies. FSA members represent more than 21 countries spanning North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.

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