GAAP net sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 were $1.35 billion, up 5.0% from net sales of $1.29 billion in the prior year's third fiscal quarter.

GAAP net income for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 was $36.2 million, or $0.13 per diluted share, down from GAAP net income of $311.1 million, or $1.20 per diluted share, in the prior year's third fiscal quarter. For the third quarters of fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2020, GAAP net income was significantly adversely impacted by purchase accounting adjustments associated with our acquisitions. For the third quarter of fiscal 2021, GAAP net income was significantly adversely impacted by a loss on debt settlement.

Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 was $444.9 million, or $1.62 per diluted share, up from non-GAAP net income of $340.8 million, or $1.32 per diluted share, in the prior year's third fiscal quarter. For the third quarters of fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2020, our non-GAAP results exclude the effect of share-based compensation, COVID-19 shelter-in-place restrictions on manufacturing activities, expenses related to our acquisition activities (including intangible asset amortization, severance and other restructuring costs, and legal and other general and administrative expenses associated with acquisitions including legal fees and expenses for litigation and investigations related to our Microsemi acquisition), professional services associated with certain legal matters, IT security remediation costs, non-cash interest expense on our convertible debentures, losses on the settlement of debt, and gains related to equity investments. For the third quarters of fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2020, our non-GAAP income tax expense is presented based on projected cash taxes for the applicable fiscal year, excluding transition tax payments under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. A reconciliation of our non-GAAP and GAAP results is included in this press release.

Microchip announced today that its Board of Directors has declared a record quarterly cash dividend on its common stock of 39 cents per share, up 5.8% from the cash dividend paid last quarter. The quarterly dividend is payable on March 8, 2021 to stockholders of record on February 22, 2021.

"The December quarter represented a shift of the business cycle back to growth as we saw a 3.3% sequential growth in revenue during the December quarter, which typically would be a sequentially down quarter in a normal seasonal environment," said Steve Sanghi, Chief Executive Officer. "Supply constraints in the industry are creating lots of challenges in meeting customer demand and our global operations team is working hard at increasing production at our internal factories and also working with our supply chain partners to get larger allocations of manufacturing capacity and materials."

Mr. Sanghi added, "We delivered a record non-GAAP gross margin of 63% and a record non-GAAP operating margin of 39.8% in the December quarter. We achieved non-GAAP EPS of $1.62 which was 5 cents above the midpoint of our guidance."

"In the December quarter, we saw the automotive, industrial and consumer home appliance markets strengthen further," said Ganesh Moorthy, President and Chief Operating Officer. "As expected, the end markets that benefited earlier in 2020 from the work from home and medical related demand surge remained at more normal demand patterns. Finally, demand for our products that go into the office environment remained weak as many businesses remain predominantly with work from home policies, thus deferring spending for these items."

Mr. Moorthy added, "During the December quarter, a robust overall business environment, accentuated by rising demand in the automotive, industrial and consumer end market, along with low levels of inventory in the distribution channel, resulted in supply constraints in practically all of our internal and external factories. In spite of our concerted efforts to increase our capacity, we expect the supply constraints we are currently seeing to continue through much of calendar year 2021. As a result, we have seen our lead times stretch out for many of our products where the constraints are more acute. We have also experienced increases in material and sub-contracted manufacturing costs and have had to take steps to secure capacity for calendar year 2021 as well as adjust our pricing accordingly."

Eric Bjornholt, Microchip's Chief Financial Officer, said, "We continued to aggressively pay down our debt with another $289.7 million of payments during the December quarter, reflecting a cumulative debt pay down of $3.24 billion over the past ten quarters, as we have actively managed the working capital requirements for the business. In the December quarter, we executed multiple debt transactions which both reduced the amount of convertible bonds we have on our balance sheet as well as reduced the weighted average interest rate of our outstanding debt. In calendar year 2020, we reduced the amount of convertible bonds on Microchip's balance sheet by approximately $2.9 billion. We believe that these actions with our convertible bonds will continue to benefit our stockholders by significantly reducing share count dilution to the extent our stock price appreciates over time."

Mr. Sanghi concluded, "Our December quarter bookings were strong and have continued that way through January, resulting in record levels of backlog and long-term order visibility. Supply constraints are currently a significant challenge as our internal and external manufacturing capacity is facing limitations. We expect our net sales in the March quarter to be up between 5% and 10% sequentially. We are guiding to a much stronger than seasonal March quarter and we expect significant revenue growth in calendar year 2021."

Microchip's Highlights for the Quarter Ended December 31, 2020:

• Announced our PIC18 Q84 family, the first PIC18 microcontroller (MCU) family for automotive designers that can be used to transmit and receive data through a Controller Area Network Flexible Data-Rate (CAN FD) bus.
  
  
• Unveiled our PIC18-Q41 and AVR DB MCU microcontroller families, the first to combine advanced analog peripherals and multi-voltage operation with inter-peripheral connections for increased system integration and reduced signal acquisition times.
  
  
• Expanded our motor control offering with digital signal controllers and microcontrollers supported by design tools, development hardware, a torque-maximizing algorithm and a refrigerator compressor reference design.
  
  
• Introduced our first Trust&GO Wi-Fi^® 32-bit MCU module with advanced peripheral options pre-provisioned for market-leading cloud platforms. The all-in-one WFI32E01PC Trust&GO solution delivers powerful MCU functionality and verifiable identity.
  
  
• Unveiled our MXT336UD-MAUHA1 family, the first safety-certified capacitive touchscreen controllers for the home appliance market offering IEC/UL 60730 Class B pre-certified solutions for OEMs.
  
  
• Unveiled our XpressConnect^™ family of low-latency PCI Express^® (PCIe^®) 5.0 and Compute Express Link^™ (CXL™) 1.1/2.0 retimers, tripling high-speed signal reach and enabling data center equipment providers to harness advancement in compute IO performance.
  
  
• Collaborated with Innovium to deliver the industry’s highest-density secured Ethernet switching solution for hyperscale data centers and telecom service providers, demonstrating interoperability between Microchip’s META-DX1 terabit-class Ethernet Physical-Layer (PHY) devices and Innovium’s TERALYNX^® 7 Ethernet switches.
  
  
• Introduced our MCP47/48FxBx8 family of octal 12-bit digital-to-analog converters, the first to include nonvolatile memory and an integrated voltage reference source so they can be pre-configured for safe and efficient power-up without relying on the system processor.
  

• Introduced our CryptoAutomotive^™ security IC, the TrustAnchor100 (TA100) – the first cryptographic companion device supporting in-vehicle network security solutions such as secure boot, firmware update and message authentication.
  
  
• Announced our LX772, the first highly integrated radiation-hardened motor controller, consolidating essential functions for the motor control and position sensing circuitry of satellite elements into a single chip, increasing reliability while reducing weight.
  
  
• Introduced our newest generation of AEC-Q101 qualified 700 and 1200V Silicon Carbide (SiC) Schottky Barrier Diode (SBD) devices for automotive applications, providing Electric Vehicle (EV) system designers with solutions that meet stringent automotive quality standards.
  
  
• Announced our RTG4 ^™ Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) family, the first of its kind in a Ceramic Quad Flat Pack option to achieve qualification to the industry’s Qualified Manufacturers List (QML), and offering a unique combination of radiation hardening by design.
  
  
• Announced our low-power radiation-tolerant PolarFire FPGA available in engineering silicon and on a path to full QML Class V spaceflight qualification, so customers can prototype with the same FPGA silicon and package now headed for space qualification.
  
  
• Acquired LegUp Computing Inc., expanding our Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based edge compute solution stack with a high-level synthesis tool to make it easier for software engineers to harness the algorithm-accelerating power of its PolarFire ^® FPGA and PolarFire System on Chip (SoC) platforms.
  
  
• Introduced 64 Mbit parallel SuperFlash ^® memory to our family of radiation-tolerant COTS-based devices for space systems, complementing its COTS-based processors and communication interfaces to streamline development of space-qualified and scalable total system solutions.
  
  
• Acquired Tekron International Ltd., a global leader in high-precision GPS and atomic clock time-keeping technologies and solutions for the smart grid and other industrial applications.