At the recent Freescale Technology Forum, Freescale Chairman and CEO Michael Mayer outlined three major trends impacting the electronics designers over the next several decades. “Energy conservation, aging population, and broadband impact/connectivity are presenting new challenges and business opportunities,” Mayer said. “With a broad portfolio of embedded technologies and systems enterprise, Freescale is uniquely positioned to help customers take advantage of these powerful market dynamics.”
Dr Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist who is trying to complete Einstein’s dream of unifying physical laws of the universe into a single equation, observed that “Moore’s Law will continue unabated till 2020.”
The three-day Forum held in Orlando from June 26-28 discussed the burning issues in the fields of consumer electronics, industrial electronics, enabling technologies, mobile communications, and networking. Over 2,300 people gathered for the event, which is a 33 percent increase from the first FTF two years ago.
Among the large number of products introduced at FTF was Freescale’s New Flexis Microcontroller series. This is claimed to be the industry’s first pin-, peripheral-, and tool-compatible 8-pin and 32-bit MCU. Two members of new Flexis series of MCUs were introduced. The MC9SO8QE128 based on SO8 core, and MCF51QE128, the first device based on ColdFire V1 core, are claimed to be the industry’s first 8- and 32-bit MCUs with pin-for-pin compatibility and a common set of on-chip peripherals and development tools. The Flexis series provides the 8- to 32-bit “connection point” on Freescale’s Controller Continuum, claimed to be the industry’s only roadmap for compatible 8- and 32-bit architectures.
The Company also announced that engineers looking for high resolution video, security, design flexibility, excellent power management, and reuse in one general purpose multimedia applications processor can now purchase Freescale ARM9 driven by i.MX27 processor.
In an exclusive meeting with EDN Asia, Sumit Sadana, Senior Vice President Strategy & Business Development, Freescale, observed that “the electronics industry is poised for a lot of consolidation, especially in wireless, because companies cannot afford the kind of huge investment required to be state-of-the-art.” He also said that vertical integration, though still common in Japan and to an extent in Korea, could no more work, and companies will have to specialize themselves to be technologically ahead. He revealed that Freescale spent 20 percent of its revenue on R&D, which was higher than the industry average of 10-12 percent. From the headcount perspective, over 20 percent R&D was done in Asia. “India is our second-largest R&D site in the world, next only to Austin,” he said.
