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"The semiconductor industry has been under pressure now for sometime, but one of the fastest growing businesses within the sector has been in programmable logic devices (PLDs)," notes Nikhil Hutheesing.

In The Forbes Wireless Stock Watch, he explains, "One of the top companies in this business is San Jose, Calif.-based Altera (NASDAQ: ALTR). Here's his bullish review.

"These PLDs are chips that allow software developers to use inexpensive software tools to quickly develop, simulate, and test their designs. Then, a design can be quickly programmed into the chip and immediately tested in a live

Filed under: Newsletters, Hilary On Stocks, Stocks to Buy, Technology

This post is part of a report entitled "Six-pack of technology favorites." You can read about the other top tech stock picks here.

"The semiconductor industry has been under pressure now for sometime, but one of the fastest growing businesses within semiconductors has been in programmable logic devices (PLDs)," notes wireless sector specialist Nikhil Hutheesing.

In The Forbes Wireless Stock Watch, he explains, "One of the top companies in this business is San Jose, California-based Altera (NASDAQ: ALTR). Here's his bullish r

Filed under: Cisco Systems (CSCO), Newsletters, International Business Machines (IBM), Broadcom Corp'A' (BRCM), Stocks to Buy

With concerns over recession, turmoil in the financial sector, fear of rising rates, high market volatility and a rising aversion to risk, many investors have been avoiding technology stocks.

Investors have feared that these economic headwinds will dampen both consumer spending for technology products and reduced capital expenditures for technology in the corporate sector.

Despite these concerns, some of the newsletter industry's leading advisors are looking beyond the

In the semiconductor business, there are two niches that have had gross margins in excess of 60%. One of them is programmable logic. I worked for ten years in companies that wanted to emulate the success of Xilinx (XLNX) and Altera (ALTR). It took me ten years [and a $35 million dollar judgment against my last Programmable Logic employer] to figure out that this duopoly will own the programmable logic [FPGA and PLD] till the end of time [with a small market-share conceded to Lattice (LSCC), Actel (ACTL), QuickLogic (QUIK), Atmel (ATML) and Cypress Semi (CY)].

ALTR and XLNX make chips that ca

Altera Corp. (ALTR) primarily makes programmable logic devices (PLD). Its customers are in the consumer, industrial, and storage sectors and its markets its products through distributors and sales personnel.

The stock recently got a nice boost after releasing strong second-quarter results. Earnings per share came in at 32 cents, 18.5% ahead of the consensus estimate. This was the third quarter in a row in which earnings beat estimates by at least 17%. Additionally, the company raised its sales guidance midpoint for the third quarter.

Other metrics were excellent as well during the quarter.

Filed under: Earnings reports, Motorola (MOT), Technical Analysis, Johnson Controls (JCI), Honeywell Intl (HON), Stocks to Buy

Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) makes high-density programmable logic devices and associated development tools. PLDs are integrated circuits that clients can program themselves, using software that Altera also provides. This allows clients to provide their customers with special-purpose chips that cost less than equivalent custom-designed devices. Altera's circuits are used by thousands of customers in computing, telecommunications, industrial, and automotive appli