Lattice Semiconductor often flies under the radar of semiconductor market observers, probably because the FPGA company is not as big a player as the Intels, AMDs, Nvidias, and Qualcomms of the world. While those giants regularly record quarterly revenue in the multi-billion-dollar range, Lattice’s revenue is measured in hundreds of millions.
Still, that is nothing to scoff at, and in its most recent quarter, Lattice pulled off something that some of the giants have not in their most recent quarters: year-over-year revenue growth. Reporting second quarter earnings this week, Lattice posted its 13th straight quarter of revenue growth, coming in at $190 million, an 18% increase over Q2 2022.
The report came after Lattice recently announced its Lattice Drive FPGA solution stack to drive FPGA development and adoption in the automotive sector, and indeed, automotive, along with other industry verticals, has been an engine of growth for the company. While the company does not break out automotive revenue as its own segment, its industrial and automotive segment brought in $115 million in Q2 2023, well above the $74 million in revenue that group posted in Q2 2022.
Also, while Lattice’s communications and computing segment and its industrial and automotive segment were almost equal in the amount of revenue they produced in Q2 2022–roughly $72 million for the former and $74 million for the latter–industrial and automotive revenue has ballooned in the year since, while communications and computing revenue fell to just over $64 million in the most recent quarter.
Just days before the Q2 2023 earnings report, Mark Hoopes, director of industrial and automotive segment marketing at Lattice Semiconductor, told Fierce Electronics, “I will say that the industrial revenue share is the larger of the two [industrial and automotive], and the reason why we are adopted is primarily due to our long presence in a lot of industries. But our devices are kind of ideal for automotive applications. They are small, they are very low power, and we have good software and tools there [to support camera and sensor processing and bridging functions within vehicles].”
He added that automotive is “fast-growing, especially because of the industry trends there,” including increasing demand for more infotainment capabilities, as well as the evolution of ADAS systems.
Analysts from The Futurum Group agreed that these developments are driving more opportunity in the FPGA market in general. Futurum CEO Daniel Newman and analyst Todd R. Weiss wrote in a research note after Lattice’s Q2 earnings report that “this growth could just be the beginning as more semiconductors are being integrated into the newest cars and trucks – both gasoline-powered and electric vehicles – as the segment continues to grow in importance and market share for Lattice. The company’s FPGAs are seeing expanding in-vehicle markets for systems including autonomous driving components, infotainment, telematics, and sensing equipment in the automotive space. We do not expect this to change anytime soon.”