NXP announces focus on cellular & identification businesses

NXP announces focus on cellular & identification businesses

NXP Semiconductors, the independent semiconductor company founded by Philips, today announced the company’s business strategy for the Indian market; reconfirming India’s important role as a site for global product and technology development alongside being an important market for key products such as chips in low cost phones and Identification.

The dual role for India has already seen the headcount at NXP’s India operations grow from 760 in late 2006, to 815 today, with plans to increase this to 900 by the end of 2007.

Speaking at the inauguration of NXP’s technology campus in Bangalore, NXP President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Frans van Houten said, “NXP has had a strong presence in India since 1990, both as a leading semiconductor supplier and, more recently, as a key player in the nation’s burgeoning R&D landscape. The Indian organization is currently host to key R&D activities in leading edge System-on-Chip design inclusive of libraries, flows & IP Blocks and also houses software activities in the main areas of NXP’s focus; digital television, cellular, multimedia for cellular, connectivity, and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies. While our development operations in India have grown significantly over the past 11 years, the current growth of the Indian economy now offers NXP an even greater opportunity to bring our blend of vibrant media technologies to the massive Indian audience.”

Talking about the market opportunity in India Mr. van Houten added, “NXP is committed to providing India and other emerging markets with products that meet the needs of the aspiring consumer. Today 60 million households in India are already enjoying great AV experience using NXP chips for CTV.”

Mr. Van Houten went on to further detail two major areas of NXP’s thrust in India:

In order to better serve markets such as India, NXP acquired Silicon Labs’ Cellular business earlier this year. The SiLabs acquisition gives NXP single chip capability which can bring the total cost of the phone to affordable levels. The PNX4901 single-chip GSM/GPRS has a very high degree of integration and low power consumption, allowing handset manufacturers to deliver sub US$20 color GSM/GPRS cell phones to the rapidly growing markets found in emerging countries. Discussing the aspirations of the Indian masses, he said, “The PNX4901 is scalable to allow for new features to be added, such as FM radio, MP3 music, and so on.” Mobile phones using the NXP chipset will be released shortly in India at affordable prices through one of the major operators. Mr. van Houten continued, “We are also expanding the India cellular team which now has successfully integrated SiLabs within its operations to take on full chip design responsibility, as they are close to the market.” This design team is unique due to its RF capability, in addition to the standard digital capability that most Indian companies currently offer.

Highlighting NXP’s success with RFID technology in India, Mr. van Houten said, “Our contactless smart card solutions have been adopted by the majority of the Metros in India, and every day more than a million people use our technology for fare payment and access to Metro services.”

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