"My favorite speculative pick for 2008 is QuickLogic (NASDAQ: QUIK)," says Paul McWilliams, editor of Next Inning. "This is a swing for the fence with a potential upside substantially over 100%. However, coupled with this potential upside are significant risks that investors should carefully consider.

"Manufacturers of battery-powered high-end consumer devices must minimize power consumption and often require instant-on capability and desire strong copy protection -- all areas where QuickLogic excels. And, even more important for QuickLogic, these customers not only couldn't care less if a part can be reprogrammed; they don't even want to deal with programming it once.

"QuickLogic has developed what it terms as a CSSP (Customer Specific Standard Product) strategy. A CSSP is a configurable standard product that QuickLogic can customize to the specific needs of its customers in a very short time -- with only a few weeks notice.

"It looks like QuickLogic's CSSP strategy is coming together. New product revenues, which are dominated by CSSPs, increased sequentially, albeit from a very small base, by 176% and guidance implies we should expect another 115% gain in Q4.

"While I believe QuickLogic was on the right road already, it would be remiss of me not to mention that Andy Pease joined the company a year ago as the VP of worldwide sales and marketing.

"Prior to joining QuickLogic, Andy held the same title at Broadcom, a Silicon Valley powerhouse with revenues more than two orders of magnitude higher than QuickLogic. It's been my experience that executives with this sort of background only join tiny companies like QuickLogic when they think the potential for success is substantial."