California: The Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) has announced its 2010 awards recipients. The awards are presented each year to outstanding semiconductor companies worldwide that have demonstrated excellence through their success, vision and strategy in the industry. The 2010 awards were presented at the annual GSA Awards Dinner Celebration, held on Thursday, December 9, 2010, in Santa Clara, California.

“The Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award,” GSA’s most prestigious award, was presented to Dr. John Hennessy, president of Stanford University. Each year this leadership award recognizes individuals, such as its namesake, Dr. Morris Chang, for their exceptional contributions to drive the development, innovation, growth and long-term opportunities for the semiconductor industry.

Members of the semiconductor industry identified the “Most Respected Emerging Public and Public Semiconductor Company Award” winners by casting ballots for the industry’s most respected companies in terms of products, vision and future opportunities. The “Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company with $500 million to $10 billion in annual sales” was awarded to Broadcom Corporation, while the “Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company with $10 billion or greater in annual sales” was awarded to Intel Corporation. The “Most Respected Emerging Public Company Award” recipient is NetLogic Microsystems, Inc., while the “Most Respected Private Company Award winner,” selected by a GSA awards committee, is Ambarella.

Altera Corporation was awarded the “Best Financially Managed Company Award” which was presented to them for their demonstration of the best overall financial performance based on a number of key financial metrics.

Private companies that doubled their revenue over eight consecutive quarters ending June 2010 were eligible to receive the “Outstanding Revenue Growth by a Private Semiconductor Company Award.” The two recipients are Apexone Microelectronics and Fulcrum Microsystems, Inc.

GSA’s Emerging Company CEO Council, venture capitalists and select serial industry entrepreneurs selected the “Start-Up to Watch Award” winner by identifying the company that has demonstrated the potential to positively change its market or the industry in general through the innovative use of semiconductor technology or a new application for semiconductor technology. This prestigious honor was given to SandForce, Inc.

As a global alliance, GSA awards companies headquartered in the Europe/Middle East/Africa and Asia-Pacific regions. The award winners, chosen by the leadership council of each respective region, are semiconductor companies that clearly demonstrated the most strength when measuring products, vision, leadership and success in the marketplace. The recipient of the “Outstanding APAC Semiconductor Company Award” is Spreadtrum Communications, Inc., and the “Outstanding EMEA Semiconductor Company Award” was given to Dialog Semiconductor.

Semiconductor financial analysts selected their favorite semiconductor companies for the “Favorite Analyst Semiconductor Company Award.” The analysts based their decisions on historical, as well as projected data, such as stock price, earnings per share, revenue forecasts and product performance. The winner chosen by Barclays Capital was QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies. Deutsche Bank awarded this honor to SanDisk Corporation, and Needham & Company presented Atheros Communications, Inc. with the 2010 award.

The Awards Dinner Celebration was made possible through the support of the event’s title sponsor TSMC; VIP Sponsor NASDAQ OMX; Networking Reception Sponsor GLOBALFOUNDRIES; as well as general sponsors Advantest, Amkor Technology, ARM, ASE Group, Atheros Communications, Barclays Capital, Broadcom, Cadence Design Systems, CSR, Deutsche Bank, eSilicon, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IBM, J.P. Morgan, KPMG, MagnaChip Semiconductor, Marvell, MIPS Technologies, Mohawk Valley Edge, Morgan Stanley, Needham & Co., NVIDIA, NetLogic Microsystems, PricewaterhouseCoopers, QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies, Samsung Semiconductor, SAP, Teradyne GSO and UMC.