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GREENSBORO — The Apple iPad 2 that went on sale March 11 marks a turning point for the tablet computer business and for Greensboro’s RF Micro Devices.

Apple nailed the first successful tablet computer with the introduction in 2010 of the first iPad. Now that competitors have entered the tablet computer business, tablets are poised to become everyday products in a wide market.

Microchip maker RF Micro is riding this wave because it is selling a new advanced component for Samsung’s Galaxy tablet computers and smart phones. RF makes the components here and at another factory in Beijing.

It will also supply a new series of phones by LG.

It couldn’t come at a better time for the $1 billion company that is marking its 20th anniversary this year and has struggled out of a rocky financial position just a few years ago.

Now, RF has financial analysts buzzing.

NBC’s “Today” show recently used Apple’s iPad 2 announcement to feature three tablet competitors, including Samsung’s Galaxy.

Samsung struck a deal months ago with RF Micro to buy thousands of PowerSmart components for their products.

RF co-founder Jerry Neal, who is also the executive vice president of strategic development, said PowerSmart components are smaller and use intelligent software to coordinate a variety of power functions in small wireless devices once handled by multiple components.

The PowerSmart device acts as a tiny computer, giving manufacturers the flexibility to use it in a variety of ways, including handset cell phones and tablets.

It also reduces the amount of space such components use.

For RF, Neal said, PowerSmart is the culmination of years of development and betting on the tablet explosion.

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, 60 new smart-platform tablets were introduced, Neal said.
“These things are going to be everywhere,” he said.

But Neal says PowerSmart — the power amplifier, as the new product is called in the trade — means that RF will be able to grab a bigger portion of the money that manufacturers spend on components.

RF Micro’s share of the amount that device makers spend on parts could be $4 to $8 per product, compared with older phones that use $1 to $4 each in RF products, an analyst wrote in an online report for Barron’s.

RF Micro’s product is so versatile, Neal said, that manufacturers will be able to save money by reducing their suppliers.

Barron’s said RF owns a 35 percent share of the worldwide power amplifier market for telephone handsets. And Barron’s predicts that the market for smart phones alone will grow from 350 million this year to nearly 800 million by 2014.

That could be good for a revenue increase to $1.25 billion by 2013.

“What we’re looking for is to get as much of the content of RF into smart products as is possible,” Neal said.

The strong prediction is one of several milestones the company has reached as it enters its third decade.

RF Micro also announced March 3 that it had made major advancements in a solar power cell designed for the mass commercial market. It is working with the U.S. Department of Energy on the project.

The company has a long list of technical achievements, including being the first company to ship 1 billion power amplifiers for cell phones.

But RF Micro, which makes millions of microchips daily and employs about 1,400 people locally, has not always had such a sunny outlook.

Its stock price, once inflated above $80 a share during the tech bubble in 2000, tumbled to below $10, where it has traded for more than six years.

 In early 2009, the company said it would take a one-time charge of $800 million so it would not surprise investors with big losses it expected during the recession.

After cutting production for a time, however, the company is making profits and has confirmed that new markets such as smart phones and tablet computers were the right targets.

Still, analysts were disappointed that its $36.7 million in earnings for the last three months of 2010 were not up to expectations.

Neal says the Power­Smart product puts the company in a new arena.

“We’re pretty excited about our prospects, and we think that it also gives us the opportunity to showcase our other products,” he said.

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com