In quarterly results, Xilinx sees strength in aerospace

The U.S. semiconductor company Xilinx announced first quarter fiscal 2014 revenue of $579 million on Wednesday, showing growth in the wired communications and aerospace and defense markets.

The company's quarterly earnings were up nine percent from the previous quarter but down one percent from the same quarter a year ago. The company pocketed $157 million for the quarter, or $0.56 per diluted share, with a gross margin of 69 percent, a company record.

Xilinx is known for making programmable logic devices, or PLDs, which are like CPUs or ASICs but do not have a fixed instruction set. The flexibility allows an engineer to configure and reconfigure aspects of the chip—logic capacity, features, speed, voltage—to suit specific use cases. The San Jose, Calif.-based company primarily competes with Altera, also headquartered in the city.

"Sales of our 28-nanometer products exceeded $50 million during the quarter, once again surpassing our expectations with strong growth from all five products," chief executive Moshe Gavrielov said. "With the first 20-nanometer product in the semiconductor industry recently taped out by the company, I am confident that Xilinx will continue to drive market expansion opportunities and augment our PLD leadership."

The company said it expects to grow its fiscal second quarter revenues between zero and three percent over Q1.