Freescale Semiconductor

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.

File:Freescale Semiconductor logo.svg
Company type	Public (NYSE: FSL)
Industry	Semiconductor
Founded	Spin-off from Motorola in 2004
Headquarters	Austin, Texas , USA
Key people	Gregg Lowe (CEO) Alan Campbell (CFO) Henri Richard (CSMO) Ken Hansen (CTO) See all executives
Revenue	$4.46 billion USD (2010))
Operating income	$478 million USD (2010)
Net income	$1.053 billion USD (2010)
Number of employees	18,500
Website	www.freescale.com

Freescale Semiconductor, Herzliya Pituah, Israel

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. produces and designs embedded hardware, with 17 billion semiconductor chips in use around the world. The company focuses on the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets with its product portfolio including microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors, digital signal controllers, sensors, RF power ICs and power management ICs. The company also holds an extensive patent portfolio, including approximately 6,100 patent families. In addition, the company offers software and development tools to enable complete solutions and to support product development.

The company is headquartered in Austin, Texas with design, research and development, manufacturing and sales operations in more than 20 countries.

Freescale is currently ranked 18th of the top 20 semiconductor sales leaders, and their −21% growth rate ranks them dead last in this group.

Competitors

Freescale competes with Texas Instruments, Intel, Microchip, NXP, MIPS, AMD, Analog Devices, AppliedMicro, Qualcomm, ST Microelectronics, Renesas, Atmel, Linear Technology, Samsung, Toshiba, Hitachi, Sharp, Epson, and a host of other similar silicon vendors.

History

Freescale was one of the first semiconductor companies in the world, having started as a division of Motorola in Phoenix, Arizona in 1949 and then created under the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. In 1955, a Motorola transistor for car radios was the world’s first commercial high-power transistor. It was also Motorola’s first mass-produced semiconductor.

In the 1960s, one of the U. S. space program's goals was to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth. In 1968, the NASA began manned Apollo flights that led to the first lunar landing in July 1969. Apollo 11 was particularly significant for hundreds of employees involved in designing, testing and producing its electronics. A division of Motorola, which became Freescale Semiconductor, supplied thousands of semiconductor devices, ground-based tracking and checkout equipment, and 12 on-board tracking and communications units. An "up-data link" in the Apollo's command module received signals from Earth to relay to other on-board systems. A transponder received and transmitted voice and television signals and scientific data.

Also that year, Freescale’s technologies were used to introduce the first two-way mobile radio with a fully transistorized power supply and receiver for cars.

Freescale has continued its growth in the networking and communications sector in later years, providing the tools behind the radio transponder that delivered the first words from the moon in 1969, and going on to develop the first prototype of the first analog mobile phone in 1973.

The company’s first microprocessor (MC6800 8-bit) was introduced in 1974, and was used in automotive, computing and video game applications.

Freescale’s next generation 32-bit microprocessor, the MC68000, led the wave of technologies that spurred the computing revolution in 1984, powering devices from Apple, Sun, and Hewlett Packard companies.

In the 1990s, Freescale’s technology was the driving force behind intelligent power switches for anti-lock brake systems, one of the first microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) inertial sensor for automotive airbags, and Freescale’s MPC5200 microprocessor deployed telematic systems for General Motors’ OnStar systems.

Since then, Freescale has continued to provide the technology behind some consumer, medical, networking and automotive products from microprocessors for the world’s first tubing-free wireless insulin pump, to and automotive microcontrollers for efficient engine design. Freescale’s motion-sensing accelerometer powers the interactivity of the Guitar Hero video games. The number one provider of eReader applications processors worldwide is Freescale.

In 2011, the company launched the industry’s first multimode wireless base station processor family that scales from small to large cells – integrating DSP and communications processor technologies to realize a true "base station-on-chip". In addition, a recent ABI Research market study report states that Freescale owns 60% share of the Radio Frequency (RF) semiconductor device market.

Also in 2011, Freescale announced the company's first magnetometer for location tracking in smart mobile devices. With the partnership of McLaren Electronic Systems, they helped the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series vehicles convert from carburetors to fuel injection starting in 2012.

Financials

Motorola announced that their semiconductor division would be divested on October 6, 2003 to create Freescale. Freescale completed its IPO on July 16, 2004.

On September 15, 2006, Freescale agreed to a buyout by a consortium led by Blackstone Group and its co-investors, Carlyle Group, TPG Capital, and Permira. The buyout offer was accepted on November 13, 2006 following a vote by company shareholders. 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. The buyout resulted in a huge $6.6 billion debt burden and accompanying interest payments from which many believe Freescale will never be able to recover

Freescale filed to go public on February 11, 2011 and completed its IPO on May 26, 2011. Freescale is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FSL. Freescale is being investigated for securities fraud in relation to this recent IPO.

For the most recent quarter ending June 30, 2012, Freescale's profits plunged 76% on a year over year basis.

Market Segments

Freescale serves the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets.

Automotive

Freescale supplies semiconductor solutions to the global automotive industry, working with automotive manufacturers. The company produces technologies and solutions critical for making cars safe, connected, fuel efficient and environmentally friendly.

Consumer

Freescale’s technologies enable devices in a number of key consumer markets, including tablets, eReaders, home media phones, smartphones, and gaming consoles. The company’s embedded solutions offer high–performance processors with low power consumption.

Industrial

Freescale provides solutions for connectivity, control, sensing and power management in the industrial market. Products address the performance spectrum with 8-, 16- and 32-bit solutions and sensors for smart energy, building control, HVAC, factory automation, energy-efficient motor control.

Networking

Freescale’s networking portfolio is designed to build content-rich networks. The company’s PowerQUICC processors, StarCore DSPs, RF solutions and QorIQ platforms offer solutions for manufacturers of wireless and wireline infrastructure, enterprise, small and home office networking, and pervasive computing products.

Products

Qorivva/5xxxMCUs, based on Power Architecture technology, are used for automotive powertrain control, body electronics, safety and chassis, and instrument cluster applications.

Kinetis ARM 32-bit MCUs represent a scalable portfolio of ARM Cortex™-M4 MCUs. The portfolio consists of five MCU families with over 200 pin-, peripheral- and software compatible devices with performance, memory and feature scalability.

ColdFire+ MCUs, enabled by 90nm Thin Film Storage flash technology with FlexMemory, ColdFire+ MCUs provide precision, performance mixed signal capabilities, ultra-low-power capabilities and peripherals for specific market applications.

i.MX Applications Processors based on ARM Technology enable high performance and long battery life for rich multimedia and display applications. The i.MX applications processor family includes processors based on ARM9, ARM11, ARM Cortex™-A8, ARM Cortex-A9 core technologies, which are powering applications in consumer, automotive and industrial markets that demand exceptional performance and efficiency.

QorIQ Processing Platforms enable the migration to multicore for networking applications. Built using one or more high-performance 32- or 64-bit cores, based on Power Architecture technology, QorIQ platforms are highly integrated system-on-chip solutions that include accelerators, security and more.

PowerQUICC families are built on Power Architecture technology and support embedded networking equipment applications. They are also suited for networked equipment applications in the industrial and computing markets, delivering support for protocols and interfaces including Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, PCI Express Serial RapidIO, ATM, HDLC, USB and PCMCIA.

The Xtrinsic family is Freescale’s brand of sensors designed with a combination of intelligent integration, logic and software. Xtrinsic sensors exhibit integrated algorithms or are integrated platforms with multiple sensors and a processor that provide awareness and decision making. Freescale’s sensing solutions are found in products across the automotive, consumer, medical and industrial markets.

Freescale offers Analog Mixed Signal and Power Management solutions which include monolithic ICs using SMARTMOS mixed signal technology, and system in package devices utilizing power, SMARTMOS, and MCU dies. The company has products for power management, integrated I/O, analog interfacing, backlighting, networking, distributed control and power for a variety of automotive, consumer and industrial products.

The Freescale Digital Signal Processor (DSP) portfolio includes products based on StarCore technology for applications including baseband, communications, aerospace, defense, industrial control and test and measurement. Freescale also offers the Symphony family of audio DSPs.

Freescale Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs) combine the processing power of a DSP and the functionality of an MCU for precise and accurate industrial control, motor control and digital power conversion applications.

Offering a broad portfolio of Radio Frequency (RF) products, Freescale primarily serves the wireless infrastructure, wireless personal area network, general purpose amplifier, broadcast, consumer, medical, smart energy, and industrial markets.

CodeWarrior Development Studio is a complete Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that provides a visual and automated framework designed to accelerate the development of complex embedded applications. CodeWarrior Development Studio is offered for almost every Freescale product line.

VortiQa Software for Networking supports the development of multicore processing solutions for networking and communications equipment. VortiQa software delivers security and networking functionality such as firewall, IPsec, VPN, IPS, anti-virus and anti-spam.

See also

• List of Freescale products
• ON Semiconductor, another Motorola semiconductor spinoff
• List of Semiconductor Fabrication Plants

External links

• Corporate website