Xilinx Sees Revenue Tumbling This Quarter

Updated from 4:39 p.m. ET

Xilinx (XLNX), following competitor Altera (ALTR), warned Monday that its March quarter revenue will fall as much as 15% from the December quarter.

"February was weaker than anticipated due to decelerating bookings and ongoing cancellations from a broad base of customers," the company said. It added that so far this quarter, the company's fiscal fourth quarter, North American resales have fallen more than 20% compared with the previous quarter, while international resales are roughly flat.

Analysts had expected the company to earn 27 cents a share this quarter on $481.3 million in revenue, according to First Call/Thomson Financial.

Just last week Altera said it expects revenue to fall 20% this quarter from the previous quarter. The companies make programmable logic devices, a type of semiconductor that customers program themselves.

Xilinx's warnings offers an indication of just how quickly conditions are deteriorating in the chip sector. Just a month ago the company said it expected revenue this quarter to be flat to slightly up.

The news also came on a day filled with chip warnings. But investors, apparently frantically searching for a sector bottom, were buying. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was up 5% Monday, and even after its warning, Xilinx was changing hands at $43 a share in after-hours trading on Island, barely off its regular-trading finish of $43.25.

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