SiRF stock down after judge recommends import ban

Shares of SiRF Technology Holdings Inc. hit an all-time low on Tuesday after a judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission recommended that imports of some of SiRF's GPS chips be banned.

The stock of the San Jose, Calif.-based company ended down 17 cents, or 8.5 percent, at $1.82. Earlier in the day, the stock went as low as $1.51, the lowest level since the company went public in April 2004.

SiRF competitor Broadcom Corp. said late Monday that Administrative Law Judge Carl C. Charneski had issued the recommendation on Friday. A final ruling by the ITC is expected by early December.

The ban would affect chips for personal navigation devices and cell phones, and the devices themselves, if they already include SiRF's chips, Broadcom said.

In August, Broadcom won an initial ruling from the ITC that SiRF violated six patents on global positioning systems.

Kanwar Chadha, SiRF's founder and vice president of marketing, said the company on Friday filed an appeal of this ruling. ITC's staff also filed a separate appeal, he said.

Chadha said the patents at issue are more about software than with the chips themselves, and the company has "multiple ways" of dealing with a ban.

"Our goal is to make sure that our customers get their products and they are taken care of," Chadha said. "We will do everything possible we can do to ensure that."

He would not comment on whether the company is in settlement talks with Broadcom.

Both Broadcom and SiRF are so-called "fabless" semiconductor companies. They design and market the chips, but leave the manufacturing to other companies, usually overseas. This is part of the reason an importation ban would be a large setback.