Another dynamic of this last year was our increased penetration into the Japanese market.

We are quite open, however, to looking at acquisitions and there are opportunities that we periodically consider. and I think that may be something we do in the future, but I must say that there is no commitment to that at the present time in any form or size.

I don't really like to talk specifically about customers by name - but we work with nearly all the leading manufacturers of consumer products worldwide and at quite a detailed engineering level.

Clearly, Japan is a most important market for digital consumer products.

Well, I think first of all, probably the most fundamental thing is that we are a mixed-signal analog semiconductor company, which, along with some of the other well-known names in the industry, enjoys very good economics.

The growth of a company like ours tends to be a relatively steady because, like some of the other successful mixed signal companies, we have a wide range of products servicing a wide range of end applications.

We have substantially improved our position in Japan which now represents a major part of our business.

One of the attractive things about being in Scotland is that we have a very good pipeline of new people coming into the company from the excellent universities around us.

Well, we are expanding in all of our segments of the market.

We believe we've got the skill base and the techniques to supply the chips that really enable the end manufacturers to develop exciting, innovative products themselves.

We opened a design center in the South of England last year as part of our strategy for being close to our customers and developing innovative products for exciting new markets.

But, when we started our product portfolio, we focused the mixed signal requirements first for image processing devices and then in audio applications , targeting our technology into the growing use of digital technology in consumer markets.

There is a wide range of opportunities for us and we see a main part of our strategy as being a company that supplies products across a range of different end applications and indeed we have quite a wide product portfolio which we enhance each year.

We are also fortunate in being in quite a sheltered environment, in terms of people moving on to do other things, because there are relatively few companies in Scotland that are looking for the skill set that we've developed.

Another dynamic of this last year was our increased penetration into the Japanese market.

We see portability in electronics being a continuing requirement, higher functionality, better battery life, requiring lower power for the actual electronics.

All the action, in semiconductors at the present time is in the new consumer applications, and that's where we have focused our activities since we started doing our own products in the late '90s.

In terms of development of the company, the vast majority of our sales are in the Far East and we will expect to strengthen our activities there, perhaps even moving some of our engineering activities abroad.

We have been a fabless semiconductor company for a number of years now.

But, when we started our product portfolio, we focused the mixed signal requirements first for image processing devices and then in audio applications, targeting our technology into the growing use of digital technology in consumer markets.

I have a business manager and a book-keeper who deals with our household bills. My husband and I sit down with her for a weekly report on how much money is going out, but I'm not terribly interested, and I don't have the patience for it.

The sabbath is God's special present to the working man, and one of its chief objects is to prolong his life, and preserve efficient his working tone. The savings bank of human existence is the weekly sabbath.

The design of 'Love Actually,' the typeface, the basic line of that poster and that DVD cover has been ripped off so many times.

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.

I still believe in the power of government to make lives better, and I believe that if someone is willing to take a stand, other people will follow.

Period recreation is very difficult unless you make a black-and-white movie.

It's part of the human character to want to know what's over the next hill, to want to know what's beyond.

I can't pretend that I'm brave and that I can beat the whole world.

I remember when I was a kid in school and teachers would explain things to me about what I read, and I'd think, Where did they get that? I didn't read that in there. Later you look at it and think, That's kind of an interesting idea.

We can bring to characters dark and bright sides that nobody even dreams about.

I've never found therapy to be a sign of weakness; I've found the opposite to be true. The willingness to have a mirror held up to you definitely requires strength.

The Widelux is a fickle mistress; its viewfinder isn't accurate, and there's no manual focus, so it has an arbitrariness to it, a capricious quality. I like that.

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

I don't want to say that we are the world in that we are not distinct from each other. I want to say that the humanity that is our foundation is common, but my culture, my beliefs, my values, what makes me sing and what makes me happy and the language I speak in and the relationships I have in the world are distinctive.

The duty of a historian is simply to understand and then convey that understanding, no more than that.

The oceans deserve our respect and care, but you have to know something before you can care about it.

It's tiring to be asked the same questions all day long: 'What is Gangnam style?' and 'Teach me how to dance.'

The best contraceptive is the word no - repeated frequently.

The legs and arms can be a revelation of the back, the spine's extensions.

While day by day the overzealous student stores up facts for future use, he who has learned to trust nature finds need for ever fewer external directions. He will discard formula after formula, until he reaches the conclusion: Let nature take its course.

When a little more than a teenager, I was a piano-bar pianist in the land where I was born and raised, Tuscany.

The Bible calls us to love our neighbors, and to do justice and love kindness, not to indiscriminately kill one another.

It's important for people to realize I don't want to be the It guy. I want to crawl before I walk. I want to learn about things before I jump into them.

I haven't been watching any TV recently because I've been on the road, but I am an avid 'EastEnders' fan. I've watched it all my life, and so have my family.