Note 8 - Long-term Investment

12 Months Ended

Mar. 29, 2015

Investments Schedule [Abstract]

Investment [Text Block]

NOTE 8.    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 account 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 year 2015.

We periodically 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 consolidated balance sheets, consisted of the following (in thousands):

	March 29, 2015			March 30, 2014
Beginning balance	$	946		$	1,288
Net distributions		(8	)		(19	)
Impairment charges		(544	)		(323	)
Ending balance	$	394		$	946

The carrying amount of approximately $0.4 million as of March 29, 2015 reflects the net of the capital contributions, capital distributions and $0.5 million cumulative impairment charges. During the term of the fund we made $4.8 million in capital contributions to Skypoint Fund since we became a limited partner in July 2001.

Impairment

We evaluate our long-term investment for impairment on an annual basis or whenever events and changes in circumstances suggest that the carrying amount may not be recoverable. If the carrying amount exceeds its fair value, the long term-investment is considered impaired and a second step is performed to measure the amount of impairment loss.

During first quarter of fiscal year 2015, we received approximately 93,000 common shares of CounterPath Corporation (“CounterPath”) through the dissolution of Skypoint Fund in which we were a limited partner since 2001. CounterPath was one of the investee companies of Skypoint Fund. We estimated the fair value using the market value of common shares as determined by trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market. We also received common shares from the other two private investee companies of Skypoint Fund through the dissolution. We assessed the fair value of the common shares received from these three companies and as a result $0.5 million impairment charges were recorded in fiscal year 2015. In fiscal years 2014 and 2013, we conducted our impairment analysis by comparing the carrying amount to the fair value of the underlying investments and recorded $0.3 million and $0 of impairment charges, respectively.