ON Semi and Siliconix Enter Cross-Licensing Agreement

ON Semiconductor (Phoenix, AZ), formerly a division of Motorola, and Siliconix (Santa Clara, CA), a subsidiary of Vishay Intertechnology Inc. (Malvern, PA), announced that the two companies have entered into a broad cross-licensing agreement that will enable the exchange of silicon intellectual property for power management, extending battery life in applications such as cellular phones and notebook computers.The critical intellectual property Siliconix is providing to ON Semiconductor is TrenchFET transistor and BCDMOS analog-process technology, both of which will bear undisclosed royalty payments. The agreement will enable ON Semiconductor to extend its reach into the low-power wireless, computing and automotive markets. In exchange, Siliconix gains access to ON Semiconductor's extensive power-management portfolio. Together with its own technology, this agreement allows Siliconix to expand its presence in the automotive market, where ON Semiconductor already has a significant presence."This exchange signifies the beginning of what we hope will be a wide collaboration between ON Semiconductor and Siliconix in power-management solutions," said Jim Thorburn, COO for ON Semiconductor. "We believe that our expertise in automotive semiconductors and high-volume manufacturing, coupled with Siliconix' expertise in TrenchFETs and innovative packaging, ideally position our two companies to bring unique power-management solutions to the wireless, computing and automotive markets.""We are excited about the broad range of possibilities this landmark agreement creates for proliferating our Trench and BCDMOS technologies into new products," said King Owyang, president and CEO of Siliconix. "We believe the synergy that exists between ON Semiconductor and Siliconix will provide the industry with an assured supply of a wide range of products and will further establish TrenchFET and BCDMOS as the technologies of choice for discrete and analog power-management products aimed at the mobile communications, computing and automotive markets."ON Semiconductor's first product resulting from this agreement is expected to be released in December 2000, while products from Siliconix will be announced in Q1 or Q2 of 2001.