Barclays raises target price on Cypress Semi

A Barclays Capital analyst boosted his target price on Cypress Semiconductor Corp. Tuesday and said the chip maker's longer-term product cycles are "in place" and could lead to a recovery beginning later this year.

Analyst Tim Luke, who rates Cypress "Overweight," raised his target price on the company's shares to $7 from $6.

Luke said that with the global economic turmoil, Cypress has faced "significant" difficulties. Chip makers have been hurt by the downturn as consumer demand for electronics and other items has declined and companies have cut back their technology budgets.

"Looking further forward, however, we are encouraged by a number of CY's new product initiatives," the analyst wrote in a note to investors. Luke added that the new products "may support a period of revenue and gross margin recovery" looking into the second half of 2009 and 2010.

Shares of San Jose, Calif.-based Cypress Semi, which makes memory chips and programmable logic devices used in computers, networking and telecom equipment, were unchanged at $5.08 in afternoon trading.