Freescale Semiconductor Completes The SPIRIT Consortium Board of Directors

SAN JOSE, Nov. 14, 2007 – The SPIRIT Consortium, a global organization focused on establishing multi-faceted IP/tool integration standards that drive sustainable growth in electronic design, today announced that Freescale Semiconductor has been accepted as the final member of its Board of Directors.  Freescale joins the original six steering committee members, ARM, Cadence, Mentor Graphics, NXP Semiconductors, ST Microelectronics, and Synopsys and together with LSI and Texas Instruments, completes the organization’s nine-member Board.

The Board of Directors effectively drives the creation and adoption of standards for configuring, integrating, and verifying IP.  Board members vote on all decisions affecting the direction and provision of deliverables from The SPIRIT Consortium.  All Consortium members are committed to making their IP and IP tools interoperable through the adoption and integration of The SPIRIT Consortium specifications. 

The membership of The SPIRIT Consortium includes more than 90 industry-leading EDA, IP providers and systems integrators.  New Reviewing Members include Barbay Consulting, Future Wireless Technologies, Gary Stringham & Associates, Jasper Design Automation, Savant Company, Synfora, Thales Communications S.A., and Think Silicon Ltd.

Freescale Nominates Luke Smithwick to Board

Freescale has appointed Luke Smithwick, director of Solution and Software Technologies, as its representative to the Board. Mr. Smithwick has extensive management and technical experience as an executive at Freescale, Aware, and Globespan Semiconductor, among others. In his current position he is responsible for the definition/implementation of platform-based solutions and establishing a consistent framework, architecture, and methodology for solutions. Mr. Smithwick is in the unique position within Freescale of working closely with the business groups and with the other corporate technology teams to help drive the enhancement of The Consortium’s IP-XACT™ specification to meet various market requirements as well as the internal adoption and alignment of the specification with Freescale methodologies.

“Freescale has activities covering every step of the IP design, integration, production, and application development process using multiple process architectures. This puts Freescale in a unique position to drive, contribute to, and validate specifications against an end-to-end tool flow,” said Ralph von Vignau, president of The SPIRIT Consortium.  “Freescale has been an active Contributing member in several working groups to date, and we look forward to their further contributions.”

Freescale is a strong supporter of industry standards. The company participates in a number of standards activities related to development, integration and reuse of semiconductor IP as well as software development and debugging tools. As a Contributing Member of The SPIRIT Consortium, Freescale has already participated in the debug and register debug working groups, as well as the planning of the proposed documentation working group.

"Freescale is committed to driving and utilizing standards that support and enhance our business,” said Luke Smithwick, director of Solution and Software Technologies, Freescale. “The IP-XACT specification provides a framework for IP integration and exchange resulting in higher productivity and quality across the industry.  We look forward to the opportunity to strengthen our relationship with The SPIRIT Consortium by contributing to and promoting this effort." 

About Freescale

Freescale Semiconductor is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. The privately held company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. Freescale is one of the world's largest semiconductor companies with 2006 sales of $6.4 billion (USD). www.freescale.com

About The Consortium

The SPIRIT Consortium is a global organization focused on establishing multi-faceted IP/tool integration standards that drive sustainable growth in electronic design.  It is comprised of companies dedicated to the adoption of a unified set of specifications for configuring, integrating, and verifying IP in advanced SoC design tool sets.  The Consortium is comprised of leading EDA, IP, system integration, and semiconductor companies.   For more information on The SPIRIT Consortium and its goals, please visit www.spiritconsortium.org