It's typically a bad sign when a major semiconductor company sees its CEO walk away, and no one in adjoining offices stops to do anything about it. Such is the case with ST-Ericsson, a (now) failed joint venture of STMicroelectronics and Ericsson. The two outfits have seemingly failed to find a suitor for the JV, leaving them with relatively few options -- poor ones at that. In a release posted today (and embedded after the break), the entity has stated that each partner company will take on some of the business, but around 1,600 jobs will be lost from the sectors that neither has interest in. ST-Ericsson was an attempt to jump-start a semiconductor business in Europe, but it actually hasn't turned a profit since forming in 2008.
Ericsson will take on the design, development and sales of the LTE multimode thin modem products, including 2G, 3G and 4G multimode, while ST will take on the existing ST-Ericsson products, other than LTE multimode thin modems, and related business as well as certain assembly and test facilities. It's expected that the particulars will clear regulatory hurdles in Q3 of this year, and in order to make sure things go as well as they can in the interim, Carlo Ferro is being appointed president and CEO of the JV starting on April 1st.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
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Via: TechCrunch
Source: ST-Ericsson, Ericsson
Whether or not Moore's Law on complexity has always held true, you've had one constant in the semiconductor world: chip makers would always find a way to shrink transistors and create more powerful chips without increasing size or power consumption....
