Linley Reports on Revenue Rise

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Sales ofnetworking silicon increased 15% in 2006 according to the latestmarket share numbers released today by The Linley Group. Networkprocessors, broadband ICs, and semiconductors for Gigabit Ethernetswitches were among the fastest growing product markets.

In network processors, Intel had a wave of design wins enterproduction, which catapulted the company to the top of the rankingsahead of long-time leader AMCC. Agere and Wintegra both grewsubstantially, as did 10Gbps NPU suppliers Bay Microsystems andEZchip. In broadband, DSL IC sales recovered, and Broadcom grew morethan 70% to nearly overtake top-ranked Conexant. PON IC sales grew,but at a disappointing 20% rate as the pioneering Japanese marketcooled and expansion into other geographies was limited. Switchingdrove Gigabit Ethernet revenue growth as enterprises improved theirLAN infrastructure to take advantage of the growing base of PCsbundled with GbE connections. Broadcom was the leading supplier inthis hot area, which, along with DSL, helped the company grow at twicethe rate of the entire industry and become bigger than its next threelargest competitors combined.

Details are available in "Networking Silicon Market Share 2006" areport released today by The Linley Group, the leading provider ofindependent analysis of the networking-silicon industry. It providesmarket-share information for more than fifteen categories of wiredcommunications products, including network processors, GigabitEthernet components, broadband transceivers, interconnect chips,encryption accelerators, and other networking ASSPs.

The report also contains market share for 10GbE NICs, high-speedembedded microprocessors, and processors for cellular handsets.Startup Neterion extended its lead in the 10GbE NIC market, whileIntel maintained its second-place ranking despite losing sharebecause of its outdated offering. Among the top-ranked embedded CPUsuppliers, AMCC was the fastest growing but trailed Intel, IBM, andFreescale. On the handset side, TI maintained its market share leadin both baseband processors and application processors, but itsbaseband growth slowed due to price pressure. Qualcomm showed stronggrowth driven by market adoption of its 3G chip sets.

"We are pleased to offer this report to chip vendors, investors, andOEMs seeking to understand how product markets and suppliers'positions have changed over the past year," said Linley Gwennap,Principal Analyst, The Linley Group. "Understanding the dynamicsamong networking silicon suppliers requires a firm grasp of bothtechnology developments and the state of the market. Through ourresearch, analysis, and business insights, we're able to offer bothperspectives to our clients."The Linley Group