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TWST: We'd like to begin with a sketch of the history of Simtek and a
picture of the main things that you're doing right now.
Mr. Blomquist: Simtek Corporation is almost 20 years old and was formed
in the mid-1980s with the idea of developing very innovative, patentable
memory technologies that would enable the company to supply solutions to
customers that require very secure storage of mission-critical data
under any circumstances, whether under power outages, brownouts, or
periodic instructions for storing. The company developed and patented a
very solid portfolio of that technology over the first several years of
operation. It has been a public company now since the early 1990s. It
has struggled to achieve market acceptance partly because of the
uniqueness of the solution and the very special niche that the company
was trying to serve. But in the most recent years, the markets the
company has served have begun to show substantial signs of growth. We
undertook a very aggressive series of steps early last year to try to
better position the company so that it could capitalize on those growth
opportunities. We jettisoned a business the company acquired several
years ago that was not strategically consistent with the specialty
memory technology. At the Board level, we made a change in the executive
management of the company, and I stepped in during May of last year as
the President and CEO of the company, and also continue to operate in
the capacity of Chairman of the Board. In the last year, I have
assembled a crack management team consisting of financial experts who
have helped me to raise money, operational experts who are preparing us
to sustain and efficiently support continued growth and a sales team
that has helped us create an average of 30% to 40% compounded growth on
a quarterly basis since the second quarter of last year. By jettisoning
one business, we have also generated some much needed cash. Late last
year, we raised a significant amount of money and proceeded to acquire
our single most direct head-to-head competitor. Beginning in the first
quarter of this year, we are reporting consolidated results on the basis
of the acquisition. The second quarter of last year was a tough quarter.
We grew in the third and the fourth quarter by 13% quarter over quarter.
From the fourth quarter of last year to the first quarter of this year,
we grew by 70%. In the early part of the second quarter, we raised the
guidance for the quarter into the upper end of the previous guidance
range, and we have raised the guidance for the year, so we are
continuing to show progress toward very aggressive goals. To put it into
a numerical sense, we posted $2.8 million fourth quarter revenue, and
then in the consolidated numbers for the first quarter, posted $4.7
million in revenue and are currently guiding for the second quarter to
be in excess of $6 million in revenue. The company has done very well
after realigning ourselves, simplifying, and focusing on the memory
technologies that were the company's roots and foundation.
Tickers included in this excerpt: SRAM
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