Back in the go-go 1990s, like every other chip company Triquint Semiconductor tried to expand into the fiber optics business. A chip maker whose main business was wireless handsets, the company bought its way into the optoelectronics business, which seemed smart back then, but is not looking so good these days. For instance, the company had invested in Network Elements which is now circling the drain it seems. More recently, the company warned that optoelectronic softness was one of the main reasons why it was going to have flat revenues in 2005. Triquint has other problems according to Inventing Money blog.

TQNT makes various components for handsets and those components are becoming obsolete thanks to QCOM incorporating those functions into its chipsets (for CDMA). TQNT originally did not participate in the GSM market, and revenues from GSM are immaterial currently accounting for 2% market share. Basically, it boils down to TQNT not being able to spend enough to keep up with market needs and not having enough scale to do anything well. On top of that add the inventory and end demand situations and you got a serious mess in your hands.