We are quite open, however, to looking at acquisitions and there are opportunities that we periodically consider. and I think that may be something we do in the future, but I must say that there is no commitment to that at the present time in any form or size.

We are also fortunate in being in quite a sheltered environment, in terms of people moving on to do other things, because there are relatively few companies in Scotland that are looking for the skill set that we’ve developed.

I don’t really like to talk specifically about customers by name – but we work with nearly all the leading manufacturers of consumer products worldwide and at quite a detailed engineering level.

Well, I think first of all, probably the most fundamental thing is that we are a mixed-signal analog semiconductor company, which, along with some of the other well-known names in the industry, enjoys very good economics.

We are quite open, however, to looking at acquisitions and there are opportunities that we periodically consider. and I think that may be something we do in the future, but I must say that there is no commitment to that at the present time in any form or size.

We have substantially improved our position in Japan which now represents a major part of our business.

One of the attractive things about being in Scotland is that we have a very good pipeline of new people coming into the company from the excellent universities around us.

Another dynamic of this last year was our increased penetration into the Japanese market.

We have been a fabless semiconductor company for a number of years now.

We see portability in electronics being a continuing requirement, higher functionality, better battery life, requiring lower power for the actual electronics.

We opened a design center in the South of England last year as part of our strategy for being close to our customers and developing innovative products for exciting new markets.

There is a wide range of opportunities for us and we see a main part of our strategy as being a company that supplies products across a range of different end applications and indeed we have quite a wide product portfolio which we enhance each year.

In terms of development of the company, the vast majority of our sales are in the Far East and we will expect to strengthen our activities there, perhaps even moving some of our engineering activities abroad.

We believe we’ve got the skill base and the techniques to supply the chips that really enable the end manufacturers to develop exciting, innovative products themselves.

But, when we started our product portfolio, we focused the mixed signal requirements first for image processing devices and then in audio applications , targeting our technology into the growing use of digital technology in consumer markets.

Well, we are expanding in all of our segments of the market.

Clearly, Japan is a most important market for digital consumer products.

The growth of a company like ours tends to be a relatively steady because, like some of the other successful mixed signal companies, we have a wide range of products servicing a wide range of end applications.

All the action, in semiconductors at the present time is in the new consumer applications, and that’s where we have focused our activities since we started doing our own products in the late ’90s.