14 Dialog Semiconductor Plc | Annual report and accounts 2012 |  Section 2 | Business review Chief Executive’s review Dear Shareholders, Dr Jalal Bagherli Chief Executive Officer Dialog continued to perform very strongly in  2012 with top-line growth of 47% year-on-year,  against a backdrop of broadly flat global  semiconductor industry revenue according to  industry analysts. This is our fifth successive year of profitable and rapid growth.  At the same time, in 2012, the Company has  improved its gross operating margin quarter on  quarter as a percentage of revenue to 37.8% over  the last four quarters by focusing on product  yield improvements, supply chain negotiations  and material cost reductions. Continued margin  improvement remains a key focus. Dialog’s financial performance in 2012 was  driven by success in the smartphone and tablet sectors. Beyond the boom in  smartphones, tablets, e-books and media  players, we expect to see the emergence of  other portable devices, such as next generation  convertible Ultrabooks™ that can be used as a tablet or laptop. Ultrabooks™ are closer in  architecture to smartphones and tablets than  PCs, in terms of their battery and energy  requirements, creating opportunities for Dialog’s power management technologies. We’re also expanding into new sectors. Using  our DECT technology, Dialog is able to support  reliable, interference-free wireless signals to  cordless phones and headsets, microphones and gaming controllers in real time with no  buffering, achieving ceiling to cellar reach.  Additionally our Ultra Low Energy (ULE) DECT  ICs are increasingly used in home automation  applications that can also be controlled over the cloud from your smartphone or tablet. This  expertise in short-range wireless connectivity is  enabling us to develop new ICs for transmitting  data between personal devices, smartphones  and tablets, and we already have some exciting  new products in development. As such, innovation continues to be the  lifeblood of our Company. Our power  management IC, featuring a new multiphase  buck converter for powering quad-core  application processors, was sampled to key  customers in 2012. It meets the more complex  power management needs of next generation  smartphones, tablets and Ultrabooks™.  In due course, we believe there will be  additional technical capabilities that Dialog must  develop or acquire to ensure it maintains its  strengths in the mixed signal semiconductor  market for portable devices. This was one of the  main reasons for our successful US$201 million  convertible bond issue in March 2012. Dialog is also keeping pace with technology and in 2013, together with our foundry  partners, will start its transition to a smaller  geometry, 130 nanometer manufacturing  process that will yield more chips per wafer. As a fabless semiconductor company, we’ve  forged close partnerships with a number of  foundries to enable us to integrate more analog,  digital and high voltage components, including  Field Effect Transistors (FETs) into a smaller form  factor, single chip power management solutions. This will help to increase the talk time of  portable devices while meeting the consumers’  desire of faster charging.  Dialog continues to seek the brightest and the  best and has significantly increased its employee  base to a total of 806 in Asia, the US and  Europe; during the last quarter of 2012 we  opened two new design centres in Turkey and Italy to attract further talent. From left:  Dialog has a strategy of continuous innovation,  focusing on new power-saving solutions and design  methodologies in the personal portable device  market, while partnering with our foundries on  advanced production processes. Dr Jalal Bagherli, Dialog Semiconductor CEO, with  Maria Marced, President of TSMC Europe, one of  Dialog’s key partners with whom the Company  is co-operating on state-of-the-art 0.13 micron  bipolar-CMOS-DMIS (BCD) technology.