NXP Semiconductors, the independent company founded by Philips, announced its acquisition of the BlueStreak™ microcontroller product portfolio from Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas – the second acquisition announced by NXP this year. NXP claims that it now has the ability to manufacture and sell the complete line of ARM7™ and ARM9™ processor-based BlueStreak microcontrollers, previously offered by Sharp. The acquisition expands NXP’s ARM Powered® microcontroller portfolio to 50 products – which the company claims is the world’s largest portfolio of ARM7 and ARM9 processor-based microcontroller products. The transaction closed on July 3, 2007. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
"We are proud of this acquisition, which demonstrates NXP’s ability to swiftly execute our growth strategy in six chosen market segments, including multimarket semiconductors. It also underscores NXP’s commitment to further strengthen our microcontroller product line and grow in particular with Japanese customers," said Hein van der Zeeuw, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Multimarket Semiconductors business unit, NXP Semiconductors. "Through this transaction, customers of the BlueStreak microcontroller product line can have confidence that they can count on continued support from NXP."
"Over the last few years, we’ve witnessed the rapid growth and wide market acceptance of NXP’s LPC2000 and LPC3000 series microcontrollers, which take advantage of the power efficiency and high performance of the ARM7 and ARM9 family processors," said Mike Inglis, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, ARM. "The 32-bit microcontroller market is an important strategic area for ARM, and NXP’s acquisition of the BlueStreak microcontroller family clearly shows that they share our vision of ARM processor-based microcontrollers representing a global industry force."
Through this acquisition NXP states that it intends to further demonstrate its commitment to change the MCU landscape and establish the ARM processor-based microcontrollers as the industry standard for the 32-bit market. With the addition of the BlueStreak microcontrollers, the NXP portfolio will include 11 ARM processor-based MCUs featuring LCD controllers to support graphical displays, including the NXP LPC2478 and LPC2470 announced earlier this year. These low-power microcontrollers are suitable for a wide range of consumer, industrial, automotive and medical applications using LCD panels – from handheld video players and GPS devices to point-of-sale terminals and portable medical diagnostic devices.
