Question-and-Answer Session
Shannon Pleasant
Thank you, Necip. We will now open the call for the question-and- answer session so that we can accommodate questions from as many people as possible before the market opens. Please limit your questions to one with one follow up. Operator, please review the question-and-answer instructions for a conference event.
Operator
Thank you. (Operator instructions) Our first question is from Craig Ellis, Caris & Company, you may ask your question.
Craig Ellis - Caris & Company
With gross margins, with respect to some of the internal improvements that you’re making and how that’s offsetting any pricing pressure that may exist in some of the businesses?
Necip Sayiner
Craig, I think we missed the first part of your question, could you please repeat it?
Craig Ellis - Caris & Company
Yes. Sure, Necip. The question was on gross margins, and I was asking if Bill could provide some more color on what operational improvements you’re making to drive the magnitude of improvement that we saw in the second quarter.
Bill Bock
Well, we improved, Craig, by about 150 basis points. We are enjoying the results of post production activities that the operation team had been working on all year. Certainly, some of this is and a cost passed along to us from our vendors.
In addition, we are benefiting to return to more normal volumes that we were experiencing at this point last year. The ASP environment has held relatively stable. So in general, we’re the beneficiary of good trends across the board that resulted in this above margin or above model gross margin performance.
Craig Ellis - Caris & Company
Okay. That helped --
Necip Sayiner
I will also add some activities with our product engineering teams and reducing tech time and increasing yield, therefore, reducing the cost of our product in general.
Craig Ellis - Caris & Company
Okay, and then, Bill, you mentioned that there might be some select hiring. Can you just talk about areas of the business where you see an opportunity to add capability? Maybe that question is better for Necip on the engineering side. How do we think about the way the company is viewing the potential to grow in its either engineering or field sales or filed engineering base?
Necip Sayiner
We have started adding some resources and application support, Craig. This is in order to support design wins with new products we brought to market recently.
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