Note 7 - Long-term Investment

9 Months Ended

Dec. 28, 2014

Investments Schedule [Abstract]

Investment [Text Block]

NOTE 7. LONG-TERM INVESTMENT

In July 2001, Exar became a Limited Partner in the Skypoint Telecom Fund II (US), LP. (“Skypoint Fund”), a venture capital fund focused on investments in communications infrastructure companies. We accounted for this non-marketable equity investment under the cost method in the other non-current assets in the consolidated balance sheet. The partnership was dissolved and the fund distributed stock of investee companies to Exar during first quarter of fiscal 2015.

We regularly review and determine whether the investment is other-than-temporarily impaired, in which case the investment is written down to its impaired value.

As of the dates indicated below, our long-term investment balance, which is included in the “Other non-current assets” line item on the condensed consolidated balance sheets, consisted of the following (in thousands):

	December 28, 2014			March 30, 2014
Beginning balance	$	946		$	1,288
Net distributions		(8	)		(19	)
Impairment charges		(35	)		(323	)
Ending balance	$	903		$	946

The carrying amount of approximately $0.9 million as of December 28, 2014 reflects the net of the capital contributions, capital distributions and $0.4 million cumulative impairment charges. During the term of the fund we have made $4.8 million in capital contributions to Skypoint Fund since we became a limited partner in July 2001. As of December 28, 2014, we do not have any further capital commitments.

Impairment

We evaluate our long-term investment for impairment whenever events and changes in circumstances suggest that the carrying amount may not be recoverable. We conduct our impairment analysis by comparing the carrying amount to the fair value of the underlying investments. If the carrying amount exceeds its fair value, long term-investment is considered impaired and a second step is performed to measure the amount of impairment loss. We analyzed the fair value of the remaining underlying investments of Skypoint Fund and as a result, $35,000 and $323,000 impairment charge was recorded during the nine months ended December 28, 2014 and in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2014, respectively.