News Article
STMicroelectronics and Freescale broad technology agreement
Freescale and STMicroelectronics are teaming up to establish a wide-ranging initiative to reinforce their respective strengths in automotive applications.
The two companies will create a joint microcontroller design team, align process technologies and share intellectual property, including high-power MOS technologies.
The agreement between the companies covers high-performance, cost-effective 32-bit microcontrollers based on PowerPC cores; the basic Intellectual-Property (IP) for automotive and navigation applications; alignment of 90-nm embedded Flash process technology; and high-voltage Power MOSFET (Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors) and IGBT (Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor) technologies.
"Electronics has clearly become a major differentiator in the automotive market," said Paul Grimme, senior V.P. and general manager, Freescale's Transportation and Standard Products Group. "And the PowerPC architecture, the leading 32-bit architecture in the automotive industry, is a driver of that differentiation. The combined design and manufacturing resources of ST and Freescale will give automakers a broader portfolio of world-class, 32-bit products for increasingly complex control functions within the car."
According to Strategy Analytics, the worldwide automotive semiconductor market is forecast to rise from $16 billion-plus in 2005 to more than $22 billion through 2009, an annual growth rate of 8 percent. The research firm has identified the 32-bit and 64-bit microcontroller (MCU) segments as the two fastest-growing segments of the automotive electronics market, with the 32-bit market expected to become the dominant automotive MCU architecture by 2007-2008.
*according to iSuppli's preliminary 2005 rankings
The agreement between the companies covers high-performance, cost-effective 32-bit microcontrollers based on PowerPC cores; the basic Intellectual-Property (IP) for automotive and navigation applications; alignment of 90-nm embedded Flash process technology; and high-voltage Power MOSFET (Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors) and IGBT (Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor) technologies.
"Electronics has clearly become a major differentiator in the automotive market," said Paul Grimme, senior V.P. and general manager, Freescale's Transportation and Standard Products Group. "And the PowerPC architecture, the leading 32-bit architecture in the automotive industry, is a driver of that differentiation. The combined design and manufacturing resources of ST and Freescale will give automakers a broader portfolio of world-class, 32-bit products for increasingly complex control functions within the car."
According to Strategy Analytics, the worldwide automotive semiconductor market is forecast to rise from $16 billion-plus in 2005 to more than $22 billion through 2009, an annual growth rate of 8 percent. The research firm has identified the 32-bit and 64-bit microcontroller (MCU) segments as the two fastest-growing segments of the automotive electronics market, with the 32-bit market expected to become the dominant automotive MCU architecture by 2007-2008.
*according to iSuppli's preliminary 2005 rankings
