ST, Freescale in Driver's Seat for Auto IP.

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Automotive semi leaders Freescale and STMicroelectronics are revving up to create a joint microcontroller design team to align process technologies and share intellectual property, including high-power MOS technologies. The agreement will result in a dual source opportunity for the companies and covers high-performance, cost-effective 32-bit microcontrollers based on PowerPC cores; the basic intellectual property for automotive and navigation applications; alignment of 90nm embedded flash process technology; and high-voltage power MOSFET (metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors) and IGBT (insulated-gate bipolar transistor) technologies.

"This partnership of the two leading automotive IC suppliers is set to better serve our customers and partners by bringing the combined design strengths of Freescale and ST to an ever wider range of automotive applications, from high-end power train to advanced safety and driver-information systems," said Ugo Carena, ST's corporate VP and general manager of the automotive product group, in a statement.

The joint design program will be co-managed by the companies and will be headquartered in the Munich area. More than 100 existing designers from the two companies will define, manage and design products to complement each company's ongoing independent roadmaps. ST and Freescale will market them independently, assuring a dual source and securing a better supply of these devices for customers.

"Electronics has clearly become a major differentiator in the automotive market," Paul Grimme, senior VP and general manager, Freescale's transportation and standard products group, said in the statement. "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."

Target applications for the MCUs produced include high-volume solutions for engine and transmission control up through multiprocessing capabilities for fault-tolerant systems required by applications such as drive and brake-by-wire, advanced vehicle control and driver information systems. Further, the duo said Freescale will use ST's high-power technologies for applications such as hybrid electric vehicles.

This agreement, though independent of previous collaborations, is another in a long history of collaborations between the two companies. Freescale and ST began working together in the Crolles2 Alliance in 2002 http://www.reed-electronics.com/electronicnews/index.asp?layout=article%26articleId=CA199746. The companies' cooperative efforts have encompassed IP, packaging and process development.