Oct 06, 2025

Xilinx Inc. (NA: XLNX)

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Zacks Rank -NA

Style: Value:
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Data Overview

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Summary

Xilinx reported overwhelming Q1 results, wherein its earnings and revenues, both, marked a solid year-over-year improvement. Moreover, the company beat its own guidance at every point. Going ahead, we believe that rising demand for 28-nm, 20-nm and 16-nm nodes is positive for the company expansion in the forthcoming quarters. We believe that Xilinx is well positioned to tap the opportunities arising from an increase in adoption of AI technologies, 5G connectivity, autonomous vehicles and IoTs, which will drive growth over the long-run. The company’s product launches should further aid revenues. Nonetheless, slowdown in the Asia-Pacific region could adversely affect Xilinx’s near-term results. Stiff competition from peers is another material headwind. Moreover, favorable product mix (higher Industrial, lower wireless) will help in gross margins.

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The data on the front page and all the charts in the report represent market data as of , while the report's text is as of 07/27/2018

Overview

San Jose, CA based Xilinx Inc. designs and manufactures a broad range of high-performance, high-density programmable logic devices (PLDs), such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and complex-programmable logic devices (CPLDs). A PLD is an integrated circuit that can be programmed in a laboratory to perform complex functions.

The company classifies its products into two categories:

Advanced Products (54% of fiscal 2018 revenues) include UltraScale+, Ultrascale and 7-series products.

Core Products (46%) include Virtex-6, Spartan-6, Virtex-5, CoolRunner-II, Virtex-4, Virtex-II, Virtex-E, Spartan-3, Spartan-II, Spartan, CoolRunner XC9500 products, configuration solutions, Software & Support/Services.

The company provides solutions for electronic equipment makers in wired and wireless communications, industrial, scientific and medical, aerospace and defense, audio, video and broadcast, consumer, automotive and data processing markets.

Reasons To Buy:

Steady demand in the communications industry, and continued strong adoption of its products in Automotive, ISM, Test and Aerospace and Defense markets will continue to drive Xilinx revenues.

Xilinx’s ongoing transition from a FPGA provider to an all-programmable devices producer has been helping the company gain market share. Its expanding product portfolio, which includes the Zynq RFSoC platform, is assisting it to counter intense competition from the likes of Intel. The company’s Zynq portfolio, which is implemented in both the 28-nm and 16-nm node, delivered sturdy top-line growth in all the three quarters of fiscal 2018. The company has started shipping of the 16-nm RFSoC Silicon In-house family of product, which offers a superior architectural solution to 5G wireless with integrated RF-class analog technology. The product facilitates reduction of power consumption (50-75%), as well as footprint reduction for future 5G deployments, cable and wireless backhaul applications.

We are optimistic over the demand of Xilinx’s Ultrascale+ FPGAs by data-center operators for providing FPGA-as-a-Service. Amazon was the first to use Xilinx chips and started offering FPGA-as-a-Service in May 2017. The list also includes Alibaba which is in the process to deploy two generations of FPGA-as-a-Service by using Xilinx’s Ultrascale+ FPGA chips.

The ever-evolving technology sector has been witnessing a number of new trends over the past couple of years. Of these, the notable ones include artificial intelligence (AI), 5G connectivity, autonomous vehicles and Internet of Things (IoT). This has created a whole new opportunity for hardware and software companies, in turn, increasing demand for programmable chips. We consider that the demand for FPGAs will surge over the long run, backed by its unique feature of the ability to be reprogrammed to the desired application or functionality requirements after manufacturing. Notably, Xilinx is a market leader in the FPGA market, with 58% share and has over one-year technology lead over its closest rival – Intel. Therefore, we believe that Xilinx is well placed to grab the opportunity arising from an increase in adoption of AI technologies, 5G connectivity, autonomous vehicles and IoTs.

Xilinx has significant exposure to Telecom & Wireless vertical markets. These markets are strongly co-related with global GDP growth and spending behavior. Most of the emerging economies are seeing unprecedented demand for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets and are also getting increasingly connected via the Internet. This has compelled these countries to heavily invest in Telecom & Wireless infrastructure. Moreover, China’s ramp up of LTE deployments should translate into revenue growth for the company (LTE base stations generally use more FPGAs). The company has secured a major design win (28-nm) from Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., a Chinese telecom and networking equipment vendor. India, another emerging market, is also stepping up 4G deployments. The company is also benefiting from LTE deployments in the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Europe, and 3G deployments in several developing countries. Furthermore, per a study report by research firm IHS iSuppli, most of the top OEMs are set to increase spending on wireless technology.

The FPGA industry has a high barrier to entry. Bottlenecks such as a unique skill set that combines semiconductor and software expertise; high investment, especially at leading technology nodes; lack of third-party development tools; and intellectual property make this space less attractive. Hence, the FPGA market is operating as a duopoly with two key players, Xilinx and Altera, dominating approximately 80% of the market.

We are encouraged by Xilinx’s endeavor to return shareholder value through continued share buybacks and dividends. Notably, during fiscal 2017, the company paid $333 million as cash dividends and repurchased shares worth $522 million during the fiscal. Continuing with its policy of returning cash to shareholders, the company paid $353.1 million as cash dividends and repurchased shares worth $474.3 million during fiscal 2018. These investor-friendly initiatives not only boost earnings but also instill investors’ confidence and loyalty.

Risks

  • Xilinx’s one of the biggest markets, Asia Pacific is still facing the challenge of slow wireless deployments, which makes us slightly cautious about its Communication business. This is making it difficult to predict the company’s growth.
     
  • Xilinx could face challenges from its biggest competitor, Intel. After acquiring Altera in 2015, Intel and has been developing high-end high-performance next-generation 14 nm FPGA chips by using its 14 nm trigate transistor technology. To remain competitive, Xilinx is planning a transition to the 16 nm node using Taiwan Semiconductor Company’s FinFET technology. However, as Intel’s manufacturing process is technologically more advanced, we do not expect Xilinx to outperform Intel in the lower dimension nodes. Apart from this, both the companies are likely to compete in 20 nm products that are still under production.
     
  • By acquiring Altera, Intel now has a strategic advantage over Xilinx regarding its HardCopy offering (a new type of high performance ASIC for which Xilinx does not have a competing product). HardCopy offers the performance of an ASIC and the flexibility of a PLD. HardCopy devices, therefore, have the potential to drive future revenues due to their low costs and ability to address opportunities beyond the PLD market. As far as development costs are concerned, ASICs are more economical and offer improved chip performance than PLDs when used in high-volume production. Therefore, they are ideal for large-volume, low-cost appliances such as consumer electronics. Customers often opt for PLDs initially for their time-to-market benefits and then shift to ASICs to produce greater volumes at lower costs. With no exposure into ASICs, it will be difficult for Xilinx to outperform Intel.
     
  • Xilinx keeps on innovating for producing advanced FPGAs of lower geometries to improve performance, density and system-level functionality, integration, and lower cost and power consumption at each manufacturing process node. With each transition to a new process node, there are considerable tape-out costs, the need to navigate the learning curve and limited volume production, which are all significant headwinds for margins and profitability. Xilinx is on the verge of a 20-nm and 16-nm transition, so there will be related pressure on gross margin.

Last Earnings Report

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Xilinx reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter 2019 results wherein both the top and the bottom line surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate and recorded year-over-year improvement.

The company reported earnings of 74 cents per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a penny and were much higher than the prior-year quarter’s figure of 59 cents.

Revenues increased 14% year over year to $684.4 million and outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $672.2 million as well.

Quarter Details

Product wise, Advanced product revenues jumped 21% year over year, contributing 56% to total revenues. Revenues from core products (44% of total) increased 5% from the year-ago quarter.

Management noted that the company’s first and second generation Zynq products hit a new sales record in the quarter, growing 76% from the year-ago quarter, driven by robust demand in automotive, industrial, communications, and Data Center markets. The Zynq SoC Platform, which includes Zynq at 28nm and both MPSoC and RFSoC at 16nm, now contributes 17% of total revenues.

Sales of 20-nm node soared 30% year over year in the reported quarter. Xilinx noted that the sales of 16-nm node increased more than 2.5 times.

On the basis of end markets, Communications revenues (31% of total revenues) declined 7% year over year. Industrial, Aerospace & Defense segment revenues (33% of total revenues) climbed 30% on a year-over-year basis. Broadcast, Consumer & Automotive revenues (16% of total revenues) increased 13% year over year.

The new reporting segment, Data Center and Test, Measurement & Emulation (TME) (19% of total) grew 11% from the year-ago quarter. Key design wins from hyperscalers globally for accelerating applications beyond FPGA as a Service (FaaS) drove results.

However, due to decline in cryptocurrency and expected decline in TME, Data Center and TME segment fell 20% sequentially. Communication segment revenues were up 7% from the prior quarter driven by strong growth in both wired and wireless, which offset the impact of ZTE.

Geographically, the company registered year-over-year growth in every region. Revenues from North America, Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific were up 12%, 14%, 12% and 15%, respectively.

Operational Details

Gross margin expanded 150 basis points (bps) year over year to 69.8%.

Research & development and selling, general & administrative expenses, as a percentage of revenues, declined 40 bps and 160 bps, respectively.

Operating expenses as a percentage of revenues declined 200 bps to 38.3%.

The company posted operating income of $215.8 million, up 27.6% year over year. Operating margin expanded 350 bps to 31.5%.

Balance Sheet, Cash Flow & Shareholders’ Return

Xilinx exited the reported quarter with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of approximately $3.36 billion compared with $3.45 billion recorded in the previous quarter.

The company has total long-term debt (excluding current portion) of about $1.207 billion, down from $1.214 billion reported in the previous quarter.

Xilinx generated cash of $176.2 million from operations compared with $242.3 million in the previous quarter.

The company paid $91 million in dividends and repurchased approximately 2.1 million shares for $137 million. The company has approximately $570 million remaining in repurchase authorizations.

Guidance

For second-quarter fiscal 2019, Xilinx projects revenues in the range of $700-$720 million.

Management expects Data Center and TME to grow significantly.  Communications is expected to increase, with strong wireless revenue growth to more than offset a slight decline in wired revenues. Early 5G deployment activity in Korea and the withdrawal of the denial order on ZTE will be tailwinds.

On the other hand, Automotive, Broadcast and Consumer is expected to be approximately flat. Industrial, Aerospace & Defense is expected to decline.

Gross margin is expected to be around 69.5%. Operating expenses are projected to be $279 million. Tax rate is estimated between 10% and 14%.

For fiscal 2019, Xilinx projects revenues in the range of $2.8-$2.9 billion (mid-point $710 million).

The company expects strong growth from Data Center, TME, Industrial, and Communications. Wireless is expected to grow significantly with early 5G production deployments and the anticipated recovery of business with ZTE. The company is also witnessing an increase in wired infrastructure deployment in concurrence with the 5G ramp.

Gross margin is expected to be between 68.5 and 70.5%. Operating expenses are projected to be in the range of $1.12-$1.14 billion.

Recent News

On Jun 26, 2018, Xilinx announced that it is teaming up with Daimler AG to develop AI based automatotive applications.

Industry Analysis(1)Zacks Industry Rank: NA

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