Santa Clara, California–Siliconix Inc. has updated its business outlook for the fourth quarter (Q4) and year 2001. Bookings for Q4 have continued to be soft, due to customers’ inventory adjustments caused by slowing in the personal computer market and cell phone handset market.

As a result, Siliconix’s Q4 2000 sales will be 10 to 15% lower than the $127,000,000 record high shipments of the third quarter (Q3) of 2000. Shipments for Q4 of 1999 were $110,000,000, according to the company.

Earnings per share for Q4 2000 will be 15 to 25% lower than the $0.98 earnings per share reported for Q3 of 2000. Earnings per share were $0.82 in Q4 of 1999.

“Although the business continues to be slow, we are optimistic heading into year 2001,” stated Dr. King Owyang, Siliconix’s president and CEO. “We expect inventory adjustments to be over by late Q1’01. The forecasted growth for the cell phone handset market is between 30 to 40% next year. New product development remains our top priority so we can continue to provide solutions to the design challenges of our customers. In line with this strategy, we recently announced the introduction of new high-end Trench silicon technology which, together with our new leadless PowerPAK packages, will provide enhanced performance in space-sensitive applications. We expect that these developments will fuel our growth in the future.”