Simtek sales reach record

Record sales helped Simtek Corp. cut its losses by two-thirds for the year and earn its first quarterly profit in nearly six years.

The Colorado Springs-based semiconductor company also said Thursday that it plans to open a design and business-development center next month in San Diego that could grow to 15 employees by year’s end. Simtek employs 45 in the Springs.

Simtek is opening the center in San Diego because it can recruit systems engineers there with experience designing products that could use the company’s chips “to give us the applications knowledge on how our products could be used,” Simtek Chairman Harold Blomquist said.

The center will be headed by semiconductor-industry veteran Ron Sartore, a San Diego-area resident who joined Simtek in November as executive vice president. The center also will house Grant Hulse, who just joined the company as vice president of worldwide marketing.

The company plans to continue expanding in Colorado Springs, where about half of its engineering operations will be based, Blomquist said.

The rest of Simtek’s engineering operations will be split between San Diego and an existing design center in Germany.

Simtek’s revenue tripled in the fourth quarter to $9.68 million, allowing the company to earn its first quarterly profit in 23 quarters — $598,000, or 4 cents a share. Simtek lost $1.85 million, or 25 cents a share, during the final quarter of 2005.

Simtek nearly tripled its annual revenue in 2006 to $30.6 million, helping to cut its losses to $2.01 million, or 13 cents a share, last year from $5.79 million, or 84 cents a share, in 2005.

The company told stockholders it expects sales this year will grow between 60 percent and 75 percent, resulting in profit of between 18 cents and 21 cents a share.