UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
| x | ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2004
or
| ¨ | TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
For the transition period from to
Commission File Number 001-32241
FREESCALE SEMICONDUCTOR, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
| DELAWARE | 20-0443182 | |
| (State of Incorporation) | (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.) |
6501 William Cannon Drive West
Austin, Texas
(Address of principal executive offices)
(512) 895-2000
(Registrant’s telephone number)
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
| Title of Each Class |
Name of Each Exchange on Which Registered | |
| Class A Common Stock, $.01 Par Value per Share | New York Stock Exchange | |
| Class B Common Stock, $.01 Par Value per Share | New York Stock Exchange | |
| Notes due 2009, 2011 and 2014 |
||
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:
None
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ¨ No x.
Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an accelerated filer (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes ¨ No x.
The aggregate market value of voting and non-voting Class A common equity held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of January 31, 2005 was approximately $1.549 billion (based on closing sale price of $17.10 per share as reported for the New York Stock Exchange-Composite Transactions).
The aggregate market value of voting and non-voting Class B common equity held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of January 31, 2005 was approximately $4.052 billion (based on closing sale price of $17.47 per share as reported for the New York Stock Exchange-Composite Transactions).
The number of shares outstanding of each of the issuer’s classes of common stock as of the close of business on January 31, 2005:
| Class |
Number of Shares | |
| Class A Common Stock; $.01 Par Value | 131,064,537 | |
| Class B Common Stock; $.01 Par Value | 269,978,659 |
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
| (1) | Portions of the registrant’s Proxy Statement relating to its 2005 Annual Stockholders’ Meeting, to be filed subsequently — Part III. |
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| PART I | ||||
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| Other Information |
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| Item 4. |
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| PART II | ||||
| Item 5. |
Market for Registrant’s Common Equity and Related Stockholder Matters |
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| Item 7. |
Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations |
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| Item 7A. |
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| Item 9. |
Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure |
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| Item 9A. |
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| PART III | ||||
| Item 10. |
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| Item 11. |
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| Item 12. |
Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters |
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| Item 13. |
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| Item 14. |
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| PART IV | ||||
| Item 15. |
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“Freescale” (which may be referred to as the “Company”, “we”, “us” or “our”) means Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. and its subsidiaries, or one of our segments, as the context requires. “Freescale” is a registered trademark of Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.
Our Company
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. (NYSE: FSL, FSL.B) is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. Freescale became a publicly traded company in July 2004 after more than 50 years as part of Motorola, Inc. We are based in Austin, Texas, and have design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. We are one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world. Coincident with the separation from Motorola in December of 2004, we joined the S&P 500 index, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, also known as the SOXX, and the Russell 1000 Index. Our net sales for the year ended December 31, 2004 were $5.7 billion, and for the year ended December 31, 2003 were $4.9 billion.
A common attribute of our success in each of the target markets that we serve is our ability to offer families of embedded processors. In their simplest forms, embedded processors provide the basic intelligence for electronic devices and can be programmed to address specific applications or functions. Examples of our embedded processors include microcontrollers, digital signal processors and communications processors.
In addition to our embedded processors, we offer our customers a broad portfolio of complementary devices that provide connectivity between products, across networks and to real-world signals, such as sound, vibration and pressure. Our complementary products include sensors, radio frequency semiconductors, power management and other analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits. Through our embedded processors and complementary products we are also able to offer customers complex combinations of semiconductors and software, which we refer to as “platform-level products.” We believe that the ability to offer platform-level products will be increasingly important to long-term success in many markets within the semiconductor industry.
Our Industry
Semiconductors are the key building blocks used to create electronic products and systems. Semiconductors perform a variety of functions, such as processing data, storing information and converting or controlling signals. With advances in semiconductor technology, the functionality and performance of semiconductors has increased while the size, weight, power requirements and unit costs have decreased. The result of these advances has been to increase the proliferation of electronic content in an increasing array of products. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, the semiconductor market grew from $18 billion in 1983 to $213 billion in 2004, representing a compound annual growth rate of 12.5%.
Recent Trends in the Semiconductor Industry
Worldwide sales of semiconductors were $213 billion in 2004, an increase of 28% from the $166 billion recorded in 2003. The 2004 semiconductor sales established an all-time record level, surpassing the previous record set in 2000 of $204 billion.
Strong growth in sales of personal computers and wireless handsets were among the major drivers of the record semiconductor sales in 2004. Strong PC sales, a 15% increase to 177 million units according to IDC,
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contributed to a very strong 61% increase in sales of DRAMS (a product we do not offer) with microprocessor sales up 11%. iSuppli reports that wireless handset sales increased to 674 million units in 2004, up 19% from 2003 levels. Handset growth contributed to strong digital signal processor sales which increased by 27% in 2004. The automotive semiconductor market grew 12% in 2004, according to Gartner, driving microcontroller growth of 25%.
The Asia-Pacific region paced the world in semiconductor sales in 2004 with growth of 41% according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. At $89 billion, the Asia Pacific semiconductor market was nearly double the size of Japan, the second largest market, whose sales of $46 billion were up 18%. Semiconductor sales in Europe grew 22%, with semiconductor sales in the Americas region up 21%.
For 2005, the consensus outlook is for the semiconductor market to experience little or no growth. Continuing efforts to reduce excess inventories across the entire supply chain and expanding supply suggested by declining capacity utilization rates will combine to create a challenging environment for us and the semiconductor industry in 2005.
Our Strengths
Given the trends that are currently having an impact on the semiconductor industry, we believe that flexible manufacturing resources, a strong intellectual property position, a global presence, broad product lines, software programmable products and platform-level products will be key competitive differentiators. We believe that we have many of the attributes that will be necessary for long-term success in the industry, including the following:
| • | Established embedded processor expertise and leadership. We have the ability to create, establish, maintain and extend our embedded processor architectures and platforms across our target industries and across our business portfolio. In addition, we have strength in embedded processor-based system-on-a-chip integration with multiple processor cores, memory types, RF capabilities, and both analog and digital technology. |
| • | End-market and applications expertise. Our historical relationships with many of Motorola’s businesses and leading external customers have enabled us to accumulate both relevant and deep market and applications expertise, particularly in the areas of automotive applications, wireless products such as cellular handsets, and wireless and telecommunications infrastructure equipment such as cellular base stations. This enhances our ability to create compelling product families and platform-level products that address the challenges our customers face in their respective industries. |
| • | Technology and intellectual property leadership. As a result of our history of innovation, we believe that we have industry leading technology and competitive advantages in a number of areas, such as in our RF technologies and cellular handset platforms, our silicon-on-insulator process technology, our robust embedded non-volatile memories and SMARTMOS high-voltage technologies for automotive applications, as well as our microprocessor and digital signal processor performance. Our intellectual property is further supported by our portfolio of over 4,900 patent families. A patent family includes all of the equivalent patents and patent applications that protect the same invention, covering different geographical regions. We believe that our intellectual property benefits us in a number of ways, including: |
| • | positions us to develop highly integrated semiconductors for current and future system-on-a-chip applications; |
| • | allows us to obtain design or process intellectual property from others at terms advantageous to us to enhance our internal development efforts; and |
| • | generates revenue from licensing our intellectual property to other semiconductor companies. |
| • | Differentiated approach to manufacturing, allowing for both process technology expertise and flexible manufacturing capacity. We believe that it is critically important to own a leadership process |
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| technology road map, as well as to have preferential access to manufacturing assets to ensure security of supply to customers. However, we also believe that the cost of technology ownership and advanced manufacturing capacity require that internal capabilities be supplemented by external partnerships to reduce the cost and risk of new investments. This is the essence of our asset-light strategy. We benefit from our alliances with third parties, such as TSMC with whom we have technology cooperation and manufacturing relationships. We also benefit from the shared development efforts of our jointly funded alliance in Crolles, France with STMicroelectronics and Philips Electronics for process technology development extending to 32 nanometers, as well as a shared 300 millimeter wafer pilot manufacturing facility. The shared development efforts have been recently expanded to include assembly and test operations as well. TSMC also participates in the process technology development aspects of the Crolles alliance, with the objective of maintaining electrical alignment of base CMOS technologies in Crolles and in TSMC, which provides us flexibility for potential volume manufacturing supply at TSMC. |
| • | Long-term global customer and supporting third-party relationships. We enjoy long-standing and strong relationships with customers in each of our three target markets. As a result of the duration and success of our efforts with market leaders in each of our target industries, we believe we are a leading provider of embedded processors to these customers. We have also developed a significant network of third parties that provide support for our products to our customers, including design tools, software, platform-level designs and complementary products. Our relationships result in closer alignment with our customers, deeper systems knowledge and insight into the challenges that our customers face. |
Our Strategy
We intend to enhance our position as a leading global semiconductor company by continuing to apply the following strategy:
| • | Focus on large, high-growth market opportunities where we can apply our intellectual property and technology capabilities. While we intend to continue to focus on delivering unique products based on our core competencies in embedded processing and connectivity across our three target industries, we also plan to expand our presence in related large and high-growth markets where we can apply the broad technology and embedded processing capabilities that we have developed for our target markets. For example, we are applying our networking capabilities into areas such as passive optical networking and wireless local area network (WLAN) access points. We are also applying our wireless expertise into handheld gaming, toys and machine-to-machine communications networks. Similarly, we are extending our automotive expertise in embedded control, power management and sensors into underrepresented markets such as appliances, robotics, computer peripherals and toys. |
| • | Evolve our asset-light strategy and continue to improve our manufacturing and operational efficiencies. We believe that we have taken significant steps to improve our manufacturing efficiencies through the adoption of our asset-light manufacturing strategy. This strategy focuses our internal manufacturing capacity selectively on leading edge, differentiated or specialty process technologies, while supplementing our internal resources with capacity for standard process technologies available from third party foundries. From December 2000 through December 31, 2004, we reduced our manufacturing facilities from 22 to nine and reduced the number of manufacturing employees by approximately 8,700. In 2002, we expanded our relationship with TSMC, the industry’s largest semiconductor foundry. TSMC is headquartered in Taiwan and provides us with long-term capacity based on compatible process technologies. Finally, as part of our asset-light strategy, we continue to seek partnerships to share the cost of developing future generation process technologies. For example, in 2002, we entered into a five-year jointly funded alliance with STMicroelectronics and Philips Electronics in Crolles, France to share the cost of developing advanced CMOS process technology that extends down to 32 nanometers and includes the development of 300 millimeter pilot manufacturing capability technology. This alliance provides us with a process technology road map and 300 millimeter manufacturing capacity at a significantly reduced cost. This provides significant strategic flexibility going forward, allowing us to evolve our manufacturing infrastructure to respond to changes in the industry environment. TSMC also |
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| participates in the process technology development aspects of the Crolles alliance, with the objective of maintaining electrical alignment of base CMOS technologies in Crolles and in TSMC, which provides us flexibility for potential volume manufacturing supply at TSMC. |
| • | Continue to develop high value-added, proprietary products. We believe that pursuing high value-added, proprietary products will allow us to increase our sales and our gross and operating margins. For example, in our Wireless and Mobile Solutions Group (WMSG), we introduced our Innovative Convergence® platforms that are intended to reduce the development time for our customers of 2G, 2.5G, and 3G cellular handset products. In our Transportation and Standard Products Group (TSPG), our differentiated microcontroller products for automotive powertrain management applications continue to gain market share. In our Networking and Computing Systems Group (NCSG), we continue to add to our communications processor family (PowerQUICC™), with the introduction of a third generation of products and the addition of new features, such as security. We intend to continue to increase our portfolio of high value-added, proprietary product offerings. |
| • | Continue to build upon our strong foundation of intellectual property. We intend to continue to invest in research and development to enable us to continue to offer high quality, differentiated, and cost-effective products to our customers. We believe that our investments in research and development are essential to maintaining our competitive advantages. Where appropriate, through development and licensing agreements with third parties, we intend to reduce our research and development costs, add to our license and royalty streams and focus our resources on those areas that provide the most value to our customers. |
| • | Increase our breadth and depth of customer relationships. We generally target customers that are leaders in the industries in which our products are used as well as companies that we believe will be future leaders in those industries. As these customers represent a significant share of the market opportunity, we believe that this approach provides us with the ability to best leverage our investments in research and development and to continually develop products that address market needs. In addition, because a number of our existing or targeted customers have historically competed with other divisions of Motorola, we believe that they may have felt constrained by our relationship with Motorola. Through our separation from Motorola, we fully intend to capitalize on our new status as a stand-alone company to increase both the breadth and depth of our customer relationships and decrease our dependency on Motorola. |
Products and Applications
We design, develop, manufacture and market a broad range of semiconductor products that are based on our core capabilities in embedded processing. In addition, we offer customers differentiated products that complement our embedded processors and provide connectivity, such as sensors, RF semiconductors, and power management and other analog and mixed-signal semiconductors. Our capabilities enable us to offer customers a broad range of product offerings, from individual devices to platform-level products that combine semiconductors with software for a given application.
We are organized into three primary business groups: Transportation and Standard Products Group (TSPG), Networking and Computing Systems Group (NCSG), and Wireless and Mobile Solutions Group (WMSG). These groups are primarily applications-focused, although TSPG also includes standard products sold into a wide variety of end markets.
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The following table gives an overview of some of the principal products and applications of each of our three primary business groups:
| Principal Products |
Key Applications | |||
| Transportation and Standard Products Group | • Microcontrollers (8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit) • Embedded microprocessors • Analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits (such as switches, power management devices, motor control devices) • Sensors |
• Automotive • Consumer devices • Industrial • Computer peripherals | ||
| Networking and Computing Systems Group | • Communications processors • Host computing processors • Digital signal processors • Radio frequency components • Timing and interconnect devices • Network processors • Network multimedia devices |
• Wireless infrastructure • Enterprise switching and routing • Network access and aggregation • Computing • WLAN gateways | ||
| Wireless and Mobile Solutions Group | • Platforms for cellular handsets and other products • Baseband components • Radio frequency components • Applications processors |
• Cellular handsets • Personal digital assistants • Global positioning systems • Mobile gaming devices • Ultra wideband connectivity • Machine-to-machine Communications | ||
Transportation and Standard Products Group (TSPG)
TSPG Overview
TSPG is a global leader in the design, manufacturing and marketing of the key components of embedded control systems. These components include embedded processors (microcontrollers, embedded microprocessors and digital signal processors), sensors and analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits. We provide comprehensive product offerings, including development tools, application support, training, documentation and platforms, enabling our customers to rapidly go to market.
Embedded control systems are found in a number of applications. For example, TSPG products can serve as the “brains” of automotive control systems, from wipers that respond to the intensity of rainfall to engine management systems that have significantly reduced exhaust emissions and fuel consumption while giving drivers enhanced performance. TSPG products can make printers operate more quickly and can wirelessly communicate mouse clicks to a computer. TSPG products can monitor food temperature in fast food restaurants and temperature in industrial equipment. They are found in homes in places such as remote controls, microwave ovens, thermostats and toys.
Primary application areas for TSPG products are:
| • | automotive (for use in airbags, anti-lock braking systems, comfort, engine management, instrument cluster, navigation, tire pressure monitoring and radio); |
| • | consumer (for use in alarm systems, audio systems, home appliances, remote controls and toys); |
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| • | industrial (for use in electronic motor control, manufacturing process control, measuring equipment and point-of-sale equipment); and |
| • | computer peripherals (for use in displays, keyboards, mice and printers). |
In 2004, over 70% of TSPG’s sales were generated from automotive applications.
TSPG Market Opportunity
We believe that the automotive industry, which currently represents the largest portion of TSPG sales, is an attractive market given its consistent long-term growth profile, its longer product life cycles and its lower degree of variability when compared to most other semiconductor markets. Semiconductor growth in this market is driven only to a small degree by vehicle production and is instead primarily driven by the increasing electronic content in vehicles, particularly in the areas of safety, powertrain management, comfort and entertainment features. Also driving growth in this market is the replacement of mechanical systems with electronically controlled systems. Examples are the replacement of manually operated car windows, the replacement of hydraulic power steering with electric power steering, and, in the future, the replacement of hydraulic brakes with electronic “brake-by-wire” systems.
The industrial, consumer and computer peripheral industries also represent significant growth opportunities for TSPG. Our TSPG strategy is to expand our portfolio of both general purpose and application specific products for the industrial, consumer and computer peripheral markets. The diverse customer and application base this creates is a strength of TSPG’s business.
Our key competitors in this group include Analog Devices, Inc., Bosch, Fujitsu Ltd., Infineon, Microchip Technology Incorporated, NEC Corporation, Philips Electronics, Renesas, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.
TSPG Principal Products
| • | Microcontrollers. Microcontrollers are computers on a chip, integrating all the major components of a computing system onto a single integrated circuit. Microcontrollers are the “brains” of many electronic applications, controlling electrical equipment or analyzing sensor inputs. We offer 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit microcontrollers. |
| • | Embedded Microprocessors. Embedded microprocessors are very similar to microcontrollers except that they do not integrate the memory storing the software program. Examples of applications using our embedded microprocessors include automotive telematics systems (which combine computing capabilities with wireless systems), printers and industrial control systems. |
| • | Analog and Mixed-Signal Integrated Circuits. Our analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits perform one or more of a number of functions, including driving actuators (such as motors, valves, lights and speakers), providing power to the electronic components in a system, filtering or amplifying signals and providing the voltage and current for communications. These integrated circuits are highly engineered, integrated products combining logic, analog and power circuits. |
| • | Sensors. The two major categories of semiconductor-based sensors that we provide are pressure sensors and inertial sensors. Pressure sensors measure the pressure of gases or liquids. For example, automotive engine management systems require the measurement of air pressure to optimize the combustion process. Other applications include blood pressure measurement, water level sensing in washing machines and tire pressure monitoring systems. Inertial sensors measure acceleration and gravitational fields. A common application for inertial sensors is in airbag systems to detect crashes. We have also recently launched a family of low-g inertial sensors, which can be used for non-automotive applications, such as measuring the vibration of washing machines, gauging running speed and distance in running shoes, or detecting “free fall” in handheld devices to trigger mechanisms that protect disc drives. |
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TSPG Strengths
We believe our key competitive strengths include:
| • | our technology leadership relating to microcontroller and embedded microprocessor performance, embedded memory, micromachining used to manufacture sensors and the ability to integrate analog and power functions; |
| • | our system-on-a-chip design methodology for hyper-integration (which is the integration of unique and dissimilar technologies) of complete products; |
| • | our established base of processor architectures and associated support tools; |
| • | our applications and systems knowledge; and |
| • | a legacy of working with leading automotive customers. |
TSPG Growth Drivers
We are focused on three initiatives that we believe will drive our future revenue growth:
| • | grow our business in high-growth, emerging markets, including China and Latin America; |
| • | capitalize on the expanding semiconductor content in automotive vehicles, including high-growth applications such as navigation, remote automobile diagnostics and safety, digital audio, tire pressure monitoring and the replacement of mechanical and hydraulic systems with electronic systems; and |
| • | broaden our product portfolio and our target industries, particularly in the areas of industrial and consumer electronics, where our competencies in embedded processing, analog and mixed- signal design and sensors provides the opportunity to create differentiated and high value-added products. |
Networking and Computing Systems Group (NCSG)
NCSG Overview
NCSG designs, manufactures and markets embedded processors and complementary connectivity products for the wired and wireless networking and computing markets. We offer semiconductors that facilitate the transmission, switching and processing of data and voice signals within communications systems. Our products support multiple communications standards and protocols, security features, network processing and broadband access devices. These products are used in four major types of equipment:
| • | network access equipment (such as WLAN access points, gateways and cable television set-top boxes); |
| • | network communications equipment (such as switches and routers for data and voice traffic); |
| • | wireless infrastructure equipment (such as cellular base stations); and |
| • | computing equipment (such as desktop and laptop computers, networked storage, gaming, and media hard copy devices). |
Our PowerQUICC™ family of communications processors is one of the key offerings of NCSG, typically generating between 30% and 40% of NCSG sales.
NCSG Market Opportunity
The communications semiconductor market is driven largely by demand for high-speed access to communications networks. As the number and types of devices accessing communications networks continues to expand and as multimedia applications, which use larger amounts of network capacity, proliferate, the demand for bandwidth and high-speed communications equipment is expected to grow. An example of the type of
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application driving greater network access rates is WLAN access points that require both processing and advanced security features at the point of access to protect the data being transmitted as well as the integrity of the network being accessed.
Our key competitors in this group include Agere, Broadcom Corporation, Conexant Systems Inc., Intel, International Business Machines Corporation, Marvell Technology Group Ltd., PMC-Sierra, Inc., Texas Instruments and Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation.
NCSG Principal Products
| • | Communications Processors. Communications processors are programmable semiconductors that perform tasks related to control and manipulation of digital data, as well as network interfaces. Our communications processors generally include our PowerQUICC™ family of processors. We sell our communications processors primarily for use in network and wireless access and customer premise equipment applications. We also sell communications processors to customers for control and processing functions in a variety of media and data storage applications, as well as for applications requiring security features, such as virtual private networks that we enable through our encryption techniques. |
| • | Host Processors. Host processors are programmable devices that are designed to be scalable in terms of performance in order to meet the highly diverse needs of products ranging from desktop and laptop computer central processing units to high-performance, highly integrated embedded microprocessors. The PowerPC™ microprocessor architecture cost-effectively provides strong processing performance, high degrees of integration, reduced power consumption and a broad set of development tools. |
| • | Digital Signal Processors. Digital signal processors are special-purpose microprocessors that can perform arithmetic calculations, such as addition and multiplication, very rapidly on a real-time basis. Digital signal processors for networking applications are used in products that require high performance calculations, such as voice compression (the conversion of voice signals into data packets) and the conversion of analog signals into digital signals at very high speeds. |
| • | Radio Frequency Devices. We sell radio frequency devices used to transmit and receive signals in wireless infrastructure products, which primarily include 2G, 2.5G, and 3G cellular base stations and cellular base transceiver stations. Our radio frequency devices include base station integrated circuit drivers, base station module pre-drivers, and radio frequency high- power transistors. These products amplify the analog signal output from a radio transceiver in preparation for transmission as a high-powered radio frequency signal over a wireless network. |
| • | Timing and Interconnect Devices. We provide a complete product line of clock devices for our customers’ system timing needs. We believe our portfolio of clock devices is one of the broadest in the industry. In addition, we offer several interconnect products, such as serializer/deserializer products that convert data streams between parallel and serial forms. These devices are used for high-bandwidth intra-system communications between chips across a board, through a backplane (a board with slots into which other boards can be plugged) or over cables. |
| • | Network Processing Devices. Network processors are programmable devices that process packets of data and control how that data is sent over a network such that the data retains its quality and integrity without interfering with other data traffic on the network. We offer supporting software with our network processor products, and our customers often add their own supporting software as well. We also provide traffic management co-processors that can accommodate multiple communications protocols in combination with our network processing devices, that enable our customers to implement comprehensive solutions with predictable levels of performance, or quality of service. Our traffic management co-processors provide support for virtually any networking protocol, enabling quality of service management functions to be applied to virtually any traffic type. |
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| • | Networked Multimedia Devices. We offer a range of products designed to improve the performance and to reduce the size and cost of multimedia delivery applications in the home. These products include single chip cable tuners for set top boxes, televisions, VCRs and cable modems. We also sell RF modulators that handle sound signals so they can be fed into a television antenna for applications such as set top boxes, DVD players and recorders, VCRs and games stations. We provide multi-channel television sound stereo encoders which solve an industry problem of preserving sound quality in surround sound and other audio systems found in set top boxes, DVD players and recorders, VCRs and games stations. |
NCSG Strengths
We believe our key competitive strengths include:
| • | our product performance, as measured by speed, power requirements, reliability, competitive features and pricing; |
| • | our broad range of product offerings; |
| • | our established communications processing, high power radio frequency, encryption and connectivity technology expertise; and |
| • | our well-developed network of independent third-party suppliers that provides tools, software, reference designs (designs incorporating a board, semiconductors, software and, in some cases, the product casing) and other complementary products to our customers. |
NCSG Growth Drivers
We are focused on four initiatives that we believe will drive our future revenue growth:
| • | continue to focus on leading original equipment manufacturers and to increase our market share at these accounts; |
| • | leverage our intellectual property portfolio to create new cost-effective and differentiated products for our customers; |
| • | create high value-added platform-level products in high-growth segments of our market that incorporate devices, software and reference hardware; and |
| • | continue to build our network of third-party suppliers to provide our customers with tools, software and services that support the use of our products. |
Wireless and Mobile Solutions Group (WMSG)
WMSG Overview
WMSG designs, manufactures and markets platform-level products and semiconductors used in the design and manufacturing of wireless mobile devices such as cellular phones, smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), two-way messaging devices, global positioning systems, mobile gaming devices and wireless consumer electronics. Our strategy focuses on enabling the proliferation of wireless platforms, applications processors and radio frequency devices. Currently, over 90% of our sales in this group are derived from cellular handsets, with Motorola being our largest end customer, representing 74%, 69% and 73% of WMSG’s 2004, 2003, and 2002 sales, respectively.
As part of our separation from Motorola, we entered into a multi-year purchase and supply agreement through the end of 2006. Under this agreement, Motorola has committed, on behalf of its cellular subscriber businesses, to purchase from us substantially all of its cellular baseband semiconductor requirements (other than cellular baseband products based on code division multiple access technologies which we do not design) for cellular handsets designed by Motorola and manufactured by or for Motorola through 2006. Under this
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agreement, Motorola will also treat us as a preferred supplier for other semiconductor components required by its cellular subscriber businesses for cellular handset manufacturing. In addition, Motorola has agreed to continue to encourage its original design manufacturers to purchase cellular baseband products and other semiconductors from us in connection with their production of cellular handsets for Motorola. Motorola’s obligations are subject to our ability to continue to supply our products on a competitive basis with respect to pricing, timing and features and other customary conditions with respect to capacity, delivery, quality and development.
WMSG Market Opportunity
Much of the growth in this market is expected to be driven by the growing adoption of 3G cellular handsets, which require increased semiconductor content for enhanced multimedia functionality and access to high-bandwidth data networks. We intend to expand our customer base for handsets beyond Motorola focusing on the current leading handset vendors around the world, as well as developing relationships with several of China’s largest original equipment manufacturers and original design manufacturers to help them create faster time-to-market products.
Our key competitors in this group include Infineon, Philips Electronics, QUALCOMM, RF Microdevices, Inc., Skyworks Solutions, Inc., STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.
WMSG Principal Products
| • | Baseband Processors. Baseband processors, typically consisting of an integrated digital signal processor and reduced instruction set computing cores, perform the digital signal processing and control functions required for cellular communications. Digital signal processing and control functions include speech compression and decompression, encoding and decoding and transmission and reception of voice and data signals. In addition, our baseband processors handle other functions, such as the keypad interface, audio control, ringing and display driving. |
| • | Power Management Semiconductors. Our power management devices control and supply the power to the various subsystems within a cellular handset. In addition, our power management devices handle the requirements for battery charging and audio amplification for the speaker and microphones. |
| • | Radio Frequency Semiconductors. Our radio frequency semiconductors include both radio frequency transceivers and power amplifiers. Radio frequency transceivers convert the digital signal received from the communications microcontroller to an analog signal in preparation for transmission as a radio frequency signal over a wireless network. Our radio frequency components target a variety of applications, such as cellular handsets, Bluetooth-enabled devices, WLAN and ultra-wideband connectivity. The breadth of our radio frequency technologies enables us to apply the best fit in terms of the cost and performance tradeoffs for each function within a handheld wireless product, helping customers create cost-effective products. |
| • | Applications Processors. Applications processors are used in a variety of applications, such as cellular handsets, PDAs, mobile gaming devices, MP3 players, global positioning systems, and other handheld devices requiring long battery life or utilizing touch-screen technology. Applications processors handle personal information management functions, such as address book, calendar and mail applications. In addition, the applications processor performs the necessary processing required to encode, decode and display video and audio files. |
| • | Platform-Level Products. In addition to our individual devices, we offer customers comprehensive platform-level products for cellular handsets. We offer platform-level products for leading cellular protocols, including Global Systems for Mobile Communications (GSM), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution (EDGE), integrated digital enhanced network (iDEN) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) as well as emerging protocols such as Zigbee and ultrawideband. Zigbee is a standards-based technology being developed for remote monitoring and |
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| control applications that require simplicity, reliability, low cost and low power. Ultrawideband is a high-bandwidth wireless technology well suited for delivering multimedia wirelessly between computers and other consumer electronics devices. We intend to continue to invest in research and development for new products, as well as for further enhancements and modifications to our existing platforms. |
| Through our highly integrated platforms, we are addressing the wireless industry’s need for flexible, scalable platforms that include robust, fully integrated silicon, software and support, which in turn ease the creation of current and next-generation wireless products. Our platform-level products also help reduce the time it takes for original equipment manufacturers to get to market, by shortening the prototyping-to-initial-production cycle by as much as six to 12 months. |
WMSG Strengths
We believe our key competitive strengths include:
| • | our breadth of product offerings ranging from baseband, power management, radio frequency and application processors to highly integrated cellular platforms; |
| • | our established embedded processor and radio frequency expertise; |
| • | our strong intellectual property position based on over 50 years of wireless experience; |
| • | our legacy of working with a leading handset provider; and |
| • | our expertise in platform integration, radio miniaturization, wireless security and system-on-a-chip design. |
WMSG Growth Drivers
We are focused on three initiatives that we believe will drive our future revenue growth:
| • | expand our customer base beyond Motorola for our platform-level products and derive new revenue streams from existing customers with related applications; |
| • | broaden our revenue from existing products, such as PDAs and mobile gaming devices and expand into new markets for local connectivity devices, smart mobile devices and wireless consumer electronics; and |
| • | identify new opportunities to increase market adoption of our applications processors. |
Customers, Sales and Marketing
We sell our products worldwide to original equipment manufacturers, to original design manufacturers and to contract manufacturers through our own sales force, agents and distributors. As of December 31, 2004, our internal sales force included over 800 sales, sales support personnel and field applications engineers. Our direct sales force is aligned by customer end markets in order to bring dedicated expertise and knowledge to our customers.
We also maintain a network of distributors that have the global infrastructure and logistics capabilities to handle several thousand other customers. Our main global distributors are Arrow Electronics, Inc., Avnet, Inc. and Future Electronics, Inc., complemented by a number of specialty regional distributors who have special relationships with their customers based on their respective collections of product offerings.
We have 69 sales offices located in 24 countries. We believe that it is important to have a large number of sales offices to closely align ourselves with the development efforts of our customers, as well as to be able to respond quickly to customer requirements.
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We generally target customers who are leaders in industries in which our products are used as well as companies that we believe will be future leaders in these industries. Motorola is currently our largest end customer, comprising approximately 28%, 23%, and 26% of 2004, 2003 and 2002 sales. No other end customer represented more than 10% of our sales for these periods.
Research and development is critical to our success, and we are committed to maintaining consistent levels of research and development expenditures. Our research and development spending has been approximately $1.0 billion for each of the past three years. Our research and development activities focus on both product and process development. Our product design engineering activities, which constitute the majority of our research and development expenditures, are primarily aligned with our three business groups and the areas of focus for these investments are described within the relevant business sections. Our process technology development resources are shared across our three business groups and, in addition, we have shared resources for development in selected areas, such as embedded memory technology, packaging technology and system-on-a-chip design methodology. We believe that this approach allows us to apply our investments in process technology and other selected areas across a broad portfolio of products.
We participate in alliances or other arrangements with external partners in the area of process technology, manufacturing technology and materials development to reduce the cost of development and accelerate access to new technologies. For example, our jointly-funded alliance with STMicroelectronics and Philips Electronics in Crolles, France is focused on the development of advanced CMOS process technology from 90 nanometers down to 32 nanometers on 300 millimeter wafers. This cooperation includes the development of analog, memory, SOI and radio frequency capabilities to be implemented in CMOS to