Friday, February 13, 2009

Atheros Communications 10K

Customer list including primary ODM and sell-throughs: "In 2008 and 2007, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. accounted for 19% and 25% of our net revenue, respectively. In 2006, Hon-Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. and UTStarcom, Inc. accounted for 20% and 10% of our net revenue, respectively. While we primarily sell directly to ODMs, the ODM generally identifies on its purchase order the OEM for whom they are purchasing our product. Based on the sell-through information provided to us by the ODMs, the following companies or their subsidiaries are among those that have incorporated our products through ODMs during the year ended December 31, 2008: 2Wire, Inc., 3Com Corp., Acer, Inc., Apple, Inc., Aruba Wireless Networks, Inc., AsusTEK Computer, Inc., AVM GmbH, Belkin Corp., Buffalo, Inc., Dell Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc. (including the Linksys Group, Inc.), D-Link Systems, Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Fujitsu Siemens Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., Lenovo Pte. Ltd., MikroTik Ltd., NEC Electronics Corp., NETGEAR, Inc., Nintendo Co., Ltd., Ruckus Wireless, Inc., Sagem Communications, Samsung Group, Siemens AG, Sony Corporation, Thomson, Toshiba Technology Corp., TP-Link Technologies Co., Ltd., Ubiquiti Networks, Inc., UTStarcom, Inc., Verizon Inc., ZyXEL Communications Corporation"

Patent Portfolio and activity: "As of December 31, 2008, we held 132 issued U.S. patents and 175 pending U.S. patent applications, in addition to international patents and pending patent applications."


Wafer Foundries and Assembly & Test: "We currently have in production products using 0.25 micron, 0.18-micron, 0.13-micron and 0.09-micron process geometries and a variety of foundries. We depend on a range of foundry contractors to manufacture substantially all of our products.......We depend on six independent foundries to manufacture substantially all of our products. Our key silicon foundries for wafer production are Chartered in Singapore, SMIC in China, Silterra in Malaysia, TSMC in Taiwan, Tower Semiconductor Ltd. in Israel and UMC in Taiwan........key test and assembly subcontractors including, but not limited to Amkor Technology, Inc. in China, Taiwan and Korea, Casio Micronics Co., Ltd. In Japan, Greatek Electronics, Inc. in Taiwan, Microelectronics Corporation in Taiwan, Sigurd Microelectronics Corp. in Taiwan , Siliconware Precision Industries Co., Ltd. in China and Taiwan and United Test and Assembly Center Ltd. in Singapore."

Staffing: "As of December 31, 2008, we employed 1,079 full-time employees, including 752 in research and development and operations, 240 in sales and marketing and 87 in general and administration."

New litigation:

Broadcom Corporation and Atheros Communications, Inc. v. Wi-LAN, Inc.

On December 10, 2008, we and Broadcom filed a complaint for declaratory judgment against Wi-LAN, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for Northern District of California, requesting the court to declare, among other things, that U.S. patent number 6,549,759, or the ‘759 Patent, assigned to Wi-LAN is invalid, unenforceable and that we do not infringe any valid claims of the ‘759 Patent. This declaratory judgment action stemmed from Wi-LAN’s threat to add this patent into the complaints filed by Wi-LAN against Atheros and others, now pending in the Eastern District of Texas. Similar declaratory judgment actions were filed by a number of other companies against Wi-LAN. However, there can be no assurance that we will be successful in seeking declaratory relief from Wi-LAN’s threat.

Atheros Communications, Inc. v. Lehman Brothers, Inc.
On January 30, 2009, we filed a Customer Claim pursuant to the Securities Investor Protection Act, or SIPA, with the SIPA Trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, Inc., in an effort to gain access to money that may be available to former Lehman clients through the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. For related reasons, we plan to file a Proof of Claim in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York against Lehman Brothers, Inc. related to compensatory and punitive damages incurred in Lehman Brothers’ investment of the Company’s cash in auction-rate securities and the resulting losses of income and liquidity. There can be no assurance that we will obtain compensation for our claims.

Project status: At December 31, 2008, the single-chip GPS device project associated with our acquisition of u-Nav was approximately 65% complete, with an estimated 0.8 years remaining to complete at an estimated cost of $3.0 million. At December 31, 2008, the Ethernet controller and switch projects associated with our acquisition of Attansic were substantially complete, and actual results were materially consistent with our assumptions at the time of the acquisition. As of December 31, 2008, the mobile communications IC projects associated with our acquisition of ZyDAS were discontinued, however we do not expect discontinuation of the project to have a material impact on our consolidated results of operations or financial condition. The original assumptions consisted of expected completion dates for the IPR&D projects, estimated costs to complete the projects, and revenue and expense projects for the products once they entered the market.