Freescale
is looking to its strengths: automotive microcontrollers, power
management, sensors, communications processors for networking, and
broadband and Internet access,
Rich Beyer, Chairman and CEO of
Freescale, told the Freescale Technology Forum in
Paris this week.
A key part of Beyer's strategy since taking over from Michel
Mayer six months ago is to increase the quality levels.
"We're increasing quality by 43 per cent year-on-year, and all
new products are introduced with zero defects", said Beyer, "in
2007, we had 7.1 defects per million parts. This year we have
brought that down to 5 defects per million. Every year we plan to
reduce that number. Eighty per cent of our products have zero
defects."
"Quality extends to the supply chain", added Beyer, "we're
significantly increasing the oversight we give to our suppliers. We
make sure they have the same quality of process as we do."
A third aspiration is 'best in class support'. "We need to
understand the lead times in each business unit and understand
customers' expectations of lead-times," said Beyer.
Beyer sees three mega-trends for the semiconductor industry.
First: "The convergence of user generated content and the
insatiable demand for bandwidth": second, health and safety; third,
going green."
"Freescale is uniquely positioned to be the leader in these
markets", said Beyer. The 'net effect' is the move to social
networking, constant connectivity and high speed Internet driven by
video-sharing sites and user generated content. As voice revenues
decline, network operators will be looking to these sorts of data
services which will generate 25 per cent of operators' revenues, or
Euros 173bn, by 2012.
LTE will be a key technology for this in providing data rate 50
times faster than 3G, according to Beyer.
"Freescale is the only company to demonstrate LTE from handset
to handset", said Beyer, "we expect to be in final trials with
operators and infrastructure providers in the early part of 2009,
and deploy later in 2009."
In the health and safety arena, semiconductor technology will be
essential to bring down the cost of monitoring patients with
heart-rate monitors, which can transmit data via cellphones to
health-care professionals.
Large machines required for electro-cardiogram machines have
been reduced by Freescale to 'ECG on a chip', and products based on
it are on the market.
In the green arena, Beyer said efficient motor control can
reduce power by 30 per cent. In automotives, it has produced an
application which cuts off the engine when the car is not in motion
and re-starts it when it moves off to provide a big reduction in
fuel use. This is being used by Valeo, the automotive sub-system
supplier.
See also:
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