STMicroelectronics and Freescale Drive Automotive Cooperation Ahead

AUSTIN, Texas & GENEVA--

Freescale Semiconductor and STMicroelectronics , leading semiconductor suppliers to the automotive industry, have achieved critical milestones in the advancement of their joint design program aimed at accelerating innovation in the automotive industry. Since announcing their initiative seven months ago, the two companies have staffed joint design facilities, designed a next-generation microcontroller core, defined product roadmaps, and aligned process technologies.

"Building on our long-term relationship, STMicroelectronics’ and Freescale’s engineering teams have rolled up their sleeves and jumped into all facets of the joint design program," said Ugo Carena, corporate vice president and general manager of the Automotive Products Group of STMicroelectronics. "We've established a hierarchy, staffed several design sites, set up global logistics, and designed a microcontroller core that will be a basic building block for many future designs. This has been an unprecedented effort and demonstrates the tremendous value both companies will realize from the joint development initiative."

The two companies have opened joint design centers to provide broad access to global design talent in silicon, software, and automotive applications. The two companies anticipate reaching a headcount of 120 engineers by the end of the year.

As part of their far-reaching collaboration, Freescale and ST have standardized on Power Architecture™ technology as the instruction set architecture for jointly developed microcontroller (MCU) products. The two companies also are focusing product development efforts on a wide range of automotive applications, including powertrain, chassis, motor control, and body systems.

One of the most noteworthy achievements of the collaboration to date is the joint definition and development of a power-efficient, 32-bit microcontroller core based on the Power Architecture e200 core. This newly developed Z0H derivative core serves as the CPU of the companies’ initial cost-optimized MCUs designed for value-priced body control applications. Initial samples of these jointly designed products are planned for the second half of 2007. One indication of the cooperation’s success is ST’s decision to migrate its future automotive MCU designs to these and other derivative cores.

“The speed at which we defined and agreed upon a next-generation core built on Power Architecture technology underscores the strength and momentum of our collaboration,” said Paul Grimme, senior vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Transportation and Standard Products Group. “Our commitment to develop an optimized core and implement it in an application-specific MCU sets a high bar for innovation. As we move from design to production, customers will benefit from the dual-source availability of our jointly designed automotive MCUs.”

Freescale and ST plan to manufacture jointly designed MCU products on mutually aligned 90-nm process technology. The companies have achieved the milestone of aligning a process test vehicle at Freescale and ST wafer fabs. In addition, joint development of non-volatile memory (NVM) technology is underway. Forthcoming MCU products are expected to be designed to integrate cost- and performance-optimized flash modules for specific automotive applications. The companies expect future design and development activities will extend into additional applications, such as safety systems, driver assistance, and driver information.

About STMicroelectronics

STMicroelectronics is a global leader in developing and delivering semiconductor solutions across the spectrum of microelectronics applications. An unrivalled combination of silicon and system expertise, manufacturing strength, Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio and strategic partners positions the Company at the forefront of System-on-Chip (SoC) technology and its products play a key role in enabling today's convergence markets. The Company's shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, on Euronext Paris and on the Milan Stock Exchange. In 2005, the Company's net revenues were $8.88 billion and net earnings were $266 million. Further information on ST can be found at www.st.com.

About Freescale Semiconductor

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. Freescale became a publicly traded company in July 2004. The company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. Freescale, a member of the S&P 500®, is one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies with 2005 sales of $5.8 billion (USD). www.freescale.com

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