week fiscal year that ends on the Saturday closest to December 31. Fiscal 2022 will have 52 weeks and fiscal 2021 had 52 weeks. Our second quarter of fiscal 2022 ended July 2, 2022. Our second quarter of fiscal 2021 ended July 3, 2021.
Impact of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the global economy, disrupting our operations, global supply chains and the operations of our customers. We implemented a response plan and continued operations while largely transitioning our global workforce to a remote work model. We have recently reopened offices in all of our locations, subject to local regulations. The third parties that perform our semiconductor manufacturing, assembly, packaging and testing have generally remained operational. The extent of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operational and financial performance will depend on future developments, including the duration, severity and spread of the pandemic, related restrictions on travel and transportation and other actions that may be taken by governmental authorities, the impact to the business of our suppliers or customers, and other items identified under “Risk Factors” below, all of which are uncertain and cannot be predicted. An extended period of global supply chain and economic disruption could materially affect our business, results of operations, access to sources of liquidity and financial condition.
Overview
We are a leader in secure, intelligent wireless technology for a more connected world. Our integrated hardware and software platform, intuitive development tools, industry leading ecosystem and robust support enable customers in building advanced industrial, commercial, home and life applications. We make it easy for developers to solve complex wireless challenges throughout the product lifecycle and get to market quickly with innovative solutions that transform industries, grow economies and improve lives. We provide analog-intensive, mixed-signal solutions for use in a variety of electronic products in a broad range of applications for the Internet of Things (IoT) including connected home and security, industrial automation and control, smart metering, smart lighting, commercial building automation, consumer electronics, asset tracking and medical instrumentation. We group our products as Industrial & Commercial or Home & Life based on the target markets they address.
As a fabless semiconductor company, we rely on third-party semiconductor fabricators in Asia, and to a lesser extent the United States and Europe, to manufacture the silicon wafers that reflect our IC designs. Each wafer contains numerous die, which are cut from the wafer to create a chip for an IC. We rely on third parties in Asia to assemble, package, and, in most cases, test these devices and ship these units to our customers. Testing performed by such third parties facilitates faster delivery of products to our customers (particularly those located in Asia), shorter production cycle times, lower inventory requirements, lower costs and increased flexibility of test capacity.
The sales cycle for our ICs can be as long as 12 months or more. An additional three to six months or more are usually required before a customer ships a significant volume of devices that incorporate our ICs. Due to this lengthy sales cycle, we typically experience a significant delay between incurring research and development and selling, general and administrative expenses, and the corresponding sales. Consequently, if sales in any quarter do not occur when expected, expenses and inventory levels could be disproportionately high, and our operating results for that quarter and, potentially, future quarters would be adversely affected. Moreover, the amount of time between initial research and development and commercialization of a product, if ever, can be substantially longer than the sales cycle for the product. Accordingly, if we incur substantial research and development costs without developing a commercially successful product, our operating results, as well as our growth prospects, could be adversely affected.
Because some of our ICs are designed for use in consumer products, we expect that the demand for our products will be typically subject to some degree of seasonal demand. However, rapid changes in our markets and across our product areas make it difficult for us to accurately estimate the impact of seasonal factors on our business.
Discontinued Operations
On July 26, 2021, we sold our infrastructure and automotive business to Skyworks Solutions, Inc. for $2.75 billion in cash. The prior year comparable period results of operations of the sold component have been presented in the accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements as discontinued operations and, therefore, are excluded from the following discussion of the results of our continuing operations.