MoT semiconductor quarterly comments:
Semiconductor Products Segment
For the year, segment sales increased 2 percent to $8.0 billion, orders were up 17 percent and segment operating profits were lower, due to a special charge taken in the second quarter related to the decision to phase out of participation in the Dynamic Random Access Memory market. Excluding this charge, operating profits increased. For the fourth quarter, sales were up 11 percent to $2.1 billion, orders rose 10 percent, and the segment had an operating profit compared with a loss a year ago. Order growth in the quarter was highest in Europe, followed by the Americas, Japan and the rest of Asia. Among major market segments, orders were higher in communications, industrial, automotive, consumer and distribution. Computer orders were lower. The sector announced an agreement with Sarnoff Corp. under which Motorola will produce chips for hi-definition television (HDTV) and other consumer entertainment products. With NDS Broadcast Systems and Alps Electric (UK) Ltd., the sector completed development of a chip set for the European Digital Terrestrial Television market. The sector introduced the M-CORE(tm) microRISC 32-bit reduced instruction set computer architecture tailored for cost-effective, ultra low-power consumer, transportation and industrial products. Motorola and Mitsubishi finalized an agreement that will allow both companies to market system solutions with Motorola's ColdFire(tm) embedded microprocessor and memory functions on a single chip. |
