Commitments and Contingencies

OPERATING LEASE COMMITMENTS | We lease facilities and equipment under non-cancelable lease agreements expiring at various times, as presented below. The facility leases generally require us to pay property taxes, insurance, maintenance, and repair costs. Total rental expense under all operating leases was $10.6 million in 2012, $8.1 million in 2011 and $9.0 million in 2010, respectively. We have the option to extend or renew most of our leases which may increase the future minimum lease commitments. Future minimum lease payments under all non-cancelable operating lease obligations as of December 31, 2012 are as follows:



Year	Operating
	(In thousands)
2013	$	9,093
2014	5,344
2015	3,823
2016	3,075
2017	2,756
2018 and thereafter	9,334
Total	$	33,425

PURCHASE OBLIGATIONS | We depend entirely upon subcontractors to manufacture our silicon wafers and provide assembly and test services. Due to lengthy subcontractor lead times, we must order these materials and services from these subcontractors well in advance, and we are obligated to pay for the materials when received and services once they are completed. As of December 31, 2012, we had approximately $138.4 million million of outstanding purchase commitments to such subcontractors. We expect to receive and pay for these materials and services over the next six months.

OTHER COMMITMENTS | In addition to operating lease obligations, we enter into a variety of agreements and financial commitments in the normal course of business. It is not possible to predict the maximum potential amount of future payments under these or similar agreements due to the conditional nature of our obligations and the unique facts and circumstances involved in each particular agreement. Historically, payments pursuant to such agreements have not been material. We believe that any future payments required pursuant to such agreements would not be material to our financial condition or results of operations.

LEGAL PROCEEDINGS | On December 8, 2010, Intellectual Ventures I LLC and Intellectual Ventures II LLC (“Intellectual Ventures”) filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware against Altera, Microsemi Corporation, and Lattice Semiconductor Corporation alleging that Altera infringes five patents. The complaint requests unspecified monetary damages including enhanced damages for willful infringement. In February 2011, Intellectual Ventures filed a First Amended Complaint adding Xilinx, Inc. as a defendant. In March 2011, Altera answered the complaint and asserted counterclaims against Intellectual Ventures for non-infringement and invalidity of the asserted patents. The defendants filed motions in the District of Delaware to transfer the case to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and to stay the action pending re-examination proceedings in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Intellectual Ventures opposed the motions. In January 2012, the United States District Court for the District of Delaware denied the defendants' motion to transfer the case to the Northern District of California, and in February 2012, the court denied the defendants' motion to stay. Three of the four defendants, including Altera, filed a writ of mandamus in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit requesting that the case be transferred to the Northern District of California. In July 2012, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied the writ of mandamus. Because the case is at a very early stage, it is not possible for us to determine whether there is a reasonable possibility that a loss has been incurred nor can we estimate the range of potential loss. The case is currently scheduled for trial in May 2014.

We file income tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) and in various U.S. states and foreign jurisdictions. In 2008, the IRS completed field examinations of our tax returns for 2002 through 2004 and proposed an additional tax liability of $34.5 million, excluding interest. We contested this proposed additional tax liability in the IRS Office of Appeals and resolved several of the issues. On December 8, 2011, the IRS issued a Statutory Notice of Deficiency, revising the assessment of additional taxes for 2002 through 2004 to $19.8 million, excluding interest. The Notice relates primarily to inter-company adjustments between related companies, computational adjustments to the research and development ("R&D") credit and reductions to the benefits of tax credit carrybacks and carryforwards to subsequent years. On March 6, 2012, we filed a petition in the U.S. Tax Court to request a redetermination of the tax deficiency regarding certain IRS adjustments for 2004. We deposited $18.0 million as a cash bond with IRS in 2008, and converted this amount to tax payments in March 2012. On May 8, 2012, the IRS filed its petition response in the U.S. Tax Court, in which the IRS conceded the R&D credit adjustment for 2004. In June 2012, the federal statute of limitations for the 2002 and 2003 tax years expired.

In addition, in 2010 the IRS completed field examinations for 2005 through 2007 and proposed an additional tax liability of $34.2 million, excluding interest. On January 23, 2012, the IRS issued a Statutory Notice of Deficiency, revising the assessment of additional taxes for 2005 through 2007 to $21.4 million, excluding interest. The Notice relates primarily to inter-company adjustments between related companies and reductions to the benefits of tax credit carrybacks and carryforwards to subsequent years. On April 20, 2012, we filed a petition in the U.S. Tax Court to request a redetermination of the tax deficiencies regarding certain IRS adjustments for 2005 through 2007. On June 21, 2012, the IRS filed its petition response in the U.S. Tax Court.

On August 15, 2012, the case for the 2004 tax year was combined with that for the 2005 through 2007 tax years. A judge has been assigned to our case and a motion for continuance has been granted. We believe we have made adequate tax payments or accrued adequate amounts for our tax liabilities for 2004 through 2007 and that the outcome of the above matters will not have a material adverse effect on our consolidated operating results, cash flows or financial position.

On January 31, 2013, the IRS conceded an adjustment for certain inter-company transactions in our litigation over the 2004 through 2007 tax years. The concession only impacted our 2007 tax year. Our other inter-company transactions continue to be subject to litigation for 2004 through 2007. As a result of this concession, we expect to recognize a tax and interest benefit of $7.5 million during the three months ending March 29, 2013 due to the release of certain tax reserves. We expect to present our legal arguments on other inter-company transactions that are subject to ligation to the U.S. Tax Court by the end of 2013.