New Chip Capacity Coming Online at ‘Pretty Fast Rate’: Lattice CEO

Though Lattice Semiconductor is “not immune” to the industrywide supply constraints in chips, it “proactively built strategic inventory” last year “to get ahead of the potential supply chain tightness,” said CEO Jim Anderson on an investor call Tuesday for fiscal Q3 ended Oct. 2. “We started doing that in Q2 of last year,” and continued doing so through Q4, he said. “That inventory build last year certainly helped us navigate the current environment and support our customers well this year.” Though there are “particular silicon package combinations that are tight in terms of supply for us,” the Lattice supply chain team “continues to do a good job supporting our customers,” he said. “We're seeing all of our suppliers continuing to add capacity in anticipation of future years’ demand,” he said. New capacity is coming online “at a pretty fast rate,” he said. Q3 revenue in Lattice’s communications and computing business increased 26% year over year, with 5G infrastructure one of the “key long-term growth drivers” in the segment, said the CEO: “We were pleased with our growth in 5G Infrastructure in Q3 as 5G continues to be deployed worldwide.” The Lattice “stack” for 5G open radio access networks is “on track for release in the first half of next year,” said Anderson. Customer feedback “has been very positive,” he said. “We're fine-tuning the feature set so that it's exactly what the customers need.”