Motorola Reveals Strategy to Boost Auto Chip
Sales
Motorola Discloses New Products and Future Plans for Continued Leadership Of
Its Industry Standard PowerPC(TM) Family of Microprocessors
DETROIT, March 6 The automotive semiconductor market is
projected to grow 21 percent by the end of this year, making it one of the
fast-growing markets in the semiconductor industry (DataQuest 2000). Today,
at a press conference held in conjunction with SAE2001, Motorola revealed
plans to aggressively advance their growth in the automotive market by
expanding their family of intelligent, high-performance PowerPC(TM)
microprocessors for the powertrain and driver information systems markets.
Motorola's line of PowerPC microprocessors is the high-performance
solution of choice from Motorola for networking and automotive applications.
Last year, according to Strategy Analytics, 32-bit processors powered 10
percent of the vehicle and are expected to take over 25 percent of the
processing power in the vehicle by 2005. Motorola is expanding its portfolio
of high-performance PowerPC microprocessors to provide smarter solutions
customized to the driver's specific needs.
"Automotive customers are seeking solutions for complex applications, such
as adding enhanced safety features, maximizing engine performance, ensuring
powertrain reliability and communicating via driver information systems," says
Scott Anderson, senior vice president and general manager, Motorola. "To
deliver on these requirements, a high-speed, cost-effective PowerPC
microprocessor is needed to enable complex applications that use in-car
networking and higher levels of system integration. Motorola's family of
PowerPC microprocessors is the 32-bit core of choice for exactly these types
of applications."
The latest offering in the portfolio is the MPC561 microprocessor that is
engineered to provide the MPC5XX family's performance and integration of
powerful peripherals that systems designers require for embedded applications.
The flashless microprocessor gives designers a cost-effective choice for
applications not requiring the highest performance from embedded flash or
those that require larger memory arrays currently not available on-chip. With
35 percent of all new vehicles using the PowerPC family of microprocessors as
the intelligence behind the powertrain system and the introduction of new
product families shifting into lower-cost application areas the PowerPC family
of microprocessors has become the solution of choice for many automotive
designs. The MPC561 complements the MPC555 and MPC565, which provided 448K
bytes and 1 megabyte of on-board flash respectively.
According to Strategy Analytics, Motorola shipped 25-percent more of its
PowerPC microprocessors to the automotive market in 2000 than the previous
year. Motorola's family of PowerPC microprocessors are designed to provide
the intelligence making possible a car that knows how to: communicate,
maximize performance and minimize emissions, and tune features automatically
as the car gets drivers where they want to go.
"Having the right partners and the right products are critical factors to
success in the automotive semiconductor market, especially since carmakers are
reducing their Tier 1 supplier base and are looking for automotive systems to
be increasingly supplied in a modular form. It's a tough market, and Motorola
has successfully delivered on both factors, while developing a legacy of
understanding customers' needs," states Chris Webber, vice president
automotive electronics & telematics practice, Strategy Analytics. "By
partnering early in the design process, Motorola may quickly develop intuitive
solutions to drive the smart features behind intelligent cars."
In addition to powertrain applications, Motorola's family of PowerPC
microprocessors the entrepreneur behind driver information systems (DIS).
mobileGT(TM), a Java(TM)-compliant architecture scaleable across a wide range
of products, is designed to allow automobile manufacturers to leverage a
common development approach while providing product differentiation. The
first of the MGT5000 family of processors, the MGT5100 with 326 MIPS
performance, is expected to be sampling in late 2001, with production
scheduled for 2002. The MGT5000 family builds on the acceptance of the
PowerPC family of microprocessors as Motorola's 32-bit core in automotive
applications. Within two years, Motorola plans to increase the computing
power of the MGT5000 family to 1000+ MIPS, enabling the company to offer
automotive manufacturers what it believes will be the fastest processing speed
combined with a robust DIS feature set available on the market. The
percentage of new cars with DIS is increasing rapidly, with an estimated
41 percent of new cars in 2005 expected to include such driver-friendly
systems (Strategy Analytics, February 2000). The mobileGT architecture is a
DigitalDNA(TM) technology from Motorola that enables DIS.
Motorola has recently concluded an agreement with Pi Technology who
specialize in the design of advanced automotive electronics for tier one
suppliers and OEMs. Pi Technology is using mobileGT to developed high end
feature sets and new concepts in automotive interior systems. Julian Styles,
Pi Technology's Interior Systems Business Unit Leader said "mobileGT has
already allowed us to build systems in a few weeks instead of months or years,
allowing us to focus on the end product rather than the building blocks." Pi
Technology is investing and developing its interior systems business and is
committed to mobileGT as part of its strategy. In return, Motorola SPS will
give Pi prioritized access to mobileGT related system products and recommend
Pi Technology as a leading integrator for the mobileGT architecture.
About Motorola
As the world's #1 producer of embedded processors, Motorola's
Semiconductor Products Sector offers multiple DigitalDNA(TM) technologies
which enable its customers to create "smart" products and new business
opportunities in the networking and computing, wireless communications,
transportation, and home networking markets. Motorola's worldwide
semiconductor sales were $7.9 billion (USD) in 2000.
http://www.motorola.com/semiconductors
Motorola, Inc. is a global leader in providing integrated
communications and embedded electronic solutions. Sales in 2000 were
$37.6 billion. http://www.motorola.com
MOTOROLA, the Stylized M Logo and all other trademarks indicated as such
herein are trademarks of Motorola, Inc. (r) Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. Java
is a registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems in the United States and all
other countries. PowerPC is a trademark owned by International Business
Machines, and is used under license.
For further information, please contact Starlyn Aurit, 512-895-2085, fax,
512-895-4614, starlyn.aurit@motorola.com, or Heather Drake, 512-895-3486, fax,
512-895-4441, heather.drake@motorola.com, both of Motorola, Inc.; or Tabitha
Bailey, 805-241-4894, fax, 805-241-2534, tabitha@funkypuppypr.com, or Audrey
Armstrong, 408-354-9053, fax, 408-395-8063, audrey@funkypuppypr.com, both of
Funky Puppy Inc., for Motorola, Inc.; or in Europe, Regina Cirmonova of
Motorola, Inc., +41-22-799-1258, r48996@email.sps.mot.com; or in Japan, Koichi
Yoshimura of Motorola Japan Ltd., +81-3-3280-8672, fax, +81-3-3440-0338,
rty490@email.sps.mot.com, or in Hong Kong, Gloria Shiu of Motorola
Semiconductors, +852-2666-8237, fax, +852-2666-5709, r42970@email.sps.mot.com.
