QuickLogic (QUIK) was up 9 cents yesterday and another 5 cents this morning, or 18% from Friday’s close, and I think this move is for real. The stock bottomed at 61 cents intraday a week ago Monday on low volume, but then word started to go around that QuickLogic blew ‘em away at the Mobile World Congress show in mid-February in Barcelona. What usually happens at these shows is the attending engineers and marketers go back to their respective companies and tell everyone else what needs to be pursued. Product data sheets are ordered, airplane reservations made and teams of engineers arrives at the company a few weeks after the show to talk turkey. Apparently, that is what has been happening at QuickLogic – a lot.

The excitement is over both of their major new products, the VEE (Visual Enhancement Engine) and their CSSP (Customer-Specific Standard Product). The VEE is one of those “you gotta see this” products, because it provides bright backlighting for cell phone displays with a much lower battery drain than current technology. For voice and texting applications, a cell phone display spends more time off than on, to reduce battery drain. But the newer always-on applications like watching video, browsing the Internet, reading and writing emails and GPS navigation require full-time backlighting. The incredible explosion of applications for the Apple iPhone will intensify this trend, and it looks like the Next Big Thing will be smartphones loaded with handy little applications to make your life easier. Your phone can now advise you on where to eat, find your friends on a map, figure out the cheapest nearby gas station and tell you where to make a right turn to get there.

I’ll have a lot more about this in this week’s Radar Report. QUIK is a very strong buy right here for my $8 target.