Freescale Semiconductor

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.

Type	Private
Founded	Spin-off from Motorola in 2004
Headquarters	Austin, Texas, USA
Key people	Richard Beyer, CEO Ken Hansen, CTO
Industry	Semiconductor
Revenue	▼$5.226 billion USD (2008))[1]
Operating income	▼-$7.828 billion USD (2008)
Net income	▼-$7.939 billion USD (2008)
Employees	21,500
Website	www.freescale.com

Freescale Semiconductor Logo.

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. is an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focuses their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embedded and communications markets. Freescale is among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders.

History

As of 2003, Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector earned $5.0 billion in semiconductor sales in 2002 (out of $27 billion sales for all of Motorola).^[2][3]

Motorola announced that their semiconductor division would be divested on October 6, 2003 to create Freescale. Freescale completed its IPO on July 16, 2004 at an IPO price of $13. In its announcement, it estimated the stock price to be $17.50-$19.50 but following a cooling of the market towards tech stocks, it lowered its price to $13. Existing shareholders of Motorola stock received 0.110415 shares of Freescale stock for every share of Motorola stock as a dividend which was distributed on December 2, 2004.^[4]

Products

Automotive

MSG (Micro-controller Solutions Group) is the largest business unit within Freescale and is currently the largest semiconductor supplier to the automotive industry. Modern cars use electronics to manage the engine for peak performance and to reduce emissions, and Freescale is the largest supplier of engine system microcontrollers in the world. Automotive safety systems such as anti-lock brakes and airbags also use microcontrollers and analog power management circuits from Freescale. Freescale also produces a range of integrated sensor products such as accelerometers and pressure sensors.

Freescale's SMARTMOS analog portfolio provides power actuation and multiple switch detect interface family ICs, system basis chips for hybrid vehicles^[5]

In November 2008 Freescale announced that the company will collaborate with McLaren Electronic Systems to further develop its KERS system for McLaren's Formula One car from 2010 onwards. Both parties believe this collaboration will improve McLaren's KERS system and help the system filter down to road car technology. ^[6]

Other Business units

Besides MSG business group, Freescale other major semiconductor businesses are the NMG (Networking and Multimedia Group) as well as RASG (RF, Analog and Sensors Group). Freescale had also been a source of PowerPC microprocessors (ICs) for Apple Computer's PowerBooks and Mac mini products until the Apple Intel transition in 2006. They joined Power.org in 2006 as a founding member to develop and promote the use of Power Architecture. CherryPal briefly reintroduced the Power Architecture to the personal computer market in late 2008 and went out of business in June, 2009.^[7]

DragonBall is a low power derivation of the earlier Motorola 68000 family microprocessors. Freescale also has a portfolio of Digital Signal Processor (DSP) products based on StarCore Technology. Freescale's DSPs are being used in Broadband Wireless, Voice Over IP and video infrastructure systems.

Buyout

On September 15, 2006, Freescale agreed to accept a buyout for the sum of $17.6 billion ($40 per share) by a consortium led by Blackstone Group LP. Share prices of $13 at the July 2004 IPO had risen to $39.35 in afterhours trading that Friday when the news, rumored that week, broke. A special shareholders meeting on November 13, 2006 voted to accept the buyout offer. The purchase, which closed on December 1, 2006, is reportedly the largest private buyout of a technology company and one of the ten largest buyouts of all time.^{[8][9][10][11]}

See also

• List of Freescale products

Notes

External links

• Corporate website
• Freescale Community - Technical Support
• Freescale Official Support