Altera has reported a fall in Q4 sales down 12% from the third quarter and down 18% from the fourth quarter of 2010.
On sales of $457.8m fourth quarter net income was also lower at $146.6m for the FPGA supplier.
"While industry conditions led to sequential sales declines in the fourth quarter, Altera grew 6 percent in 2011—well ahead of most of the semiconductor industry. Our FPGA market share once again improved," said John Daane, Altera's president and CEO.
"As we have seen over the last several years, there are long-term technology-based trends that favor FPGAs. We continue to believe that these factors, plus ongoing FPGA share gains, give us the potential over time for sales growth twice that of the semiconductor industry," said Daane.
On the positive side was Altera's shipping of its first mid-range 28-nm Arria V FPGAs. It also announced the OpenCL, C-based open standard for parallel programming in FPGAs.
During the quarter Altera's 28nm portfolio was selected as the Semiconductor Product of the Year – Digital in the annual Elektra European Electronics Industry Awards.
"The Elektra European Electronics Industry Awards are the most prestigious product technology and business awards in Europe," said Altera.
www.altera.com
See also: Xilinx sees weaker demand in comms markets