ST-Ericsson moves app chips to STMicro, focuses on mobile
updated 11:35 pm EDT, Mon April 23, 2012
ST-Ericsson jettisons much of its processor work
ST-Ericsson on Monday backed out of core app processors in an attempt to streamline its work. Research and development, and the matching staff, would be transferred to STMicro. In turn, STMicro would license back the technology it develops so that ST-Ericsson could implement it in modem-equipped processors for smartphones and tablets.
As a consequence of the shift, ST-Ericsson expected to lose 1,700 jobs, although some of those would be the staff leaving for STMicro, rather than representing absolute job losses.
The company wanted to move towards "sustainable profitability," CEO Didier Lamouche said. His company would be focusing more on its cellular hardware and partnerships to reach that end and find areas where it could stand out.
Although ST-Ericsson has a substantial footprint in mobile, it's much smaller in practice than NVIDIA, Qualcomm, or TI. Its highest-profile phones so far this year are Sony's Xperia P and Xperia U, either of which uses one of ST-Ericsson's NovaThor dual-core ARM processors. [via Engadget]
