SiliconBeat

Salaries of the executive officers at Atheros Communications, which were reduced Feb. 1 in a cost saving measure, were restored Monday by the board’s compensation committee. Chief Executive Craig Barratt, who had his annual salary cut 40 percent to $204,000, will now be paid at an annual rate of $340,000. Other executives, who had their salaries cut 20 percent, also had their pay raised back to 2008 levels.

The committee re-evaluated the salary reductions light of better-than-expected results Atheros announced yesterday for its 2009 second quarter, and for its third quarter forecast earnings of from 29 to 31 cents a share, significantly higher than the 17 cents average analyst estimate in a Thomson Reuters survey were expecting. Shares of Atheros popped today, rising $1.83, or 8.1 percent, to close at $24.35.

It is certainly a welcome relief for the company, whose CEO warned in December that the “economic environment deteriorated significantly throughout the (2008) fourth quarter and consumer demand across multiple geographies weakened.”

Electroglas, the beleaguered supplier of wafer testing systems to chip manufacturers, said Friday that Warren Kocmond, the chief executive it named on Feb. 9, announced  on Monday that he would be resigning as of Aug. 3, although he will continue to serve on the company’s board of directors. The company’s chairman and former CEO, Thomas Rohrs, will replace him as interim CEO.

The company cut its workforce by Read the rest of this entry »

Cadence Design Systems, the San Jose supplier of electronic design automation software, will  eliminate the equivalent of about 225 full-time employees between now and the end of the year. Based on the 4,900 employees the company reported having at the end of 2008, the layoffs represent about 5 percent of Cadence’s total workforce.

The action is expected to cost Read the rest of this entry »

Novellus Systems said Wednesday that Chief Executive Richard Hill will begin getting paid a base salary equal to 90 percent of his reported 2008 base salary, which was $878,000, according to the company’s last proxy, making his new base salary $790,200. Divided by 12, that amounts to about $65,850 a month.

But the reduction is effectively a raise, given that Read the rest of this entry »

Network Equipment Technologies reported issuing a block of shares of restricted stock on Monday to its employees, including its executive officers, “intended primarily to approximately offset temporary salary reductions” which began being imposed for a six-month period beginning with the company’s April 3 payroll.

The company issued Read the rest of this entry »

Xilinx, the San Jose maker of programmable chips, said Wednesday it expects to cut 200 jobs, or about six percent of its total workforce. The move is expected to cost anywhere from $11 to $13 million in charges during its current quarter, mostly to cover severance pay, and estimates that it will save the company somewhere between $4 and $5 million per quarter.

The company is implementing other short-term cost-savings measures, including Read the rest of this entry »

The three top executives at Electronics for Imaging have volunteered to have their salaries cut “in support of the Company’s cost reduction activities due to deteriorating global economic and industry conditions,” the company said in a filing today that also included a preliminary look at earnings for its just completed first quarter.

The company sees sales coming in between Read the rest of this entry »

A day before it is set to host a visit by the Congressman from its district, Adept Technology filed word today with the SEC that its CEO, John Dulchinos, would be taking a second 20 percent hit to his salary on top of the one he took in January, while its other executives would have their base pay cut 10 percent.

For Dulchinos, that means annual pay at a rate of Read the rest of this entry »

The compensation committee of Network Equipment Technologies’ board of directors voted last week to enact a six-month salary reduction for virtually all of its employees.

Chief Executive C. Nicholas Keating will have 15 percent knocked off his pay while the salary of the company’s other executives is to be reduced 10 percent. Salaries for most other employees Read the rest of this entry »

Electroglas, which cut its work force by 15 percent and reduced salaries for those remaining by the same amount, said the steps were “not enough to compensate for the precipitous drop in revenue” during its fiscal 2009 third quarter, for which it released results today.

“Clearly we are disappointed in these quarterly results,” said the company’s recently apointed Read the rest of this entry »