Freescale joins forces with IBM

By Ed Sperling -- Electronic News, 1/23/2007

Freescale inked a wide-ranging deal with IBM today for jointly developing new technology and committing its future to the Common Platform supported by IBM, Samsung and Chartered Semiconductor.

The decision positions Freescale to take advantage of early technology road map details from Samsung, one of the largest consumers of wireless technology. It also allows Freescale to offset some of the high development costs of new technology by joining forces with IBM and its partners on new process technology, silicon on insulator and low-power technology.

“What we’re doing is bringing together our leadership and market expertise in networking, automotive and wireless and IBM’s expertise in process technology and system technology,” said Sumit Sadana, Senior VP of strategy and business development at Freescale. “This will help us broaden our manufacturing capabilities.”

The deal also provides the second in a one-two punch for the development consortium in Crolles, France. NXP—formerly Philips Semiconduc.tor—already announced it is pulling out of Crolles. Freescale’s involvement will shrink by the end of the year, as well, according to Sadana.

The Crolles alliance—a research consortium started by Philips, STMicro, and Freescale, with access to research from nearby IMEC in Belgium—has been the most visible challenger to IBM’s vast ecosystem. Lisa Su, IBM’s VP of semiconductor research and development, said IBM has been working on building technology alliances for a decade, including collaboration with AMD on silicon-on-insulator technology, low-power technology with Samsung, Chartered and Infineon, and gaming platforms with Toshiba, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

“This is a business of scale,” said Sadana. “Our manufacturing relationship with ST will evolve, because we do own some limited assets in a pilot line in Crolles.” He declined to comment on how that deal will proceed now that Freescale has a deal with IBM.