ARM vows to fight for automotive market

Peter Clarke, EE Times
(02/13/2006 3:14 PM EST)

LONDON — ARM Holdings plc is determined to gain market share in the automotive sector, despite the strength of the PowerPC processor architecture in that sector. Ian Drew vice president of sector marketing for ARM (Cambridge, England) said: “We’ll fight like cats and dogs. Automotive is a growing sector for us.”

Drew’s comments came after an announcement from Freescale Semiconductor Inc., and STMicroelectronics that they had entered a design collaboration on automotive applications, including the creation of a microcontroller design team that would work around the PowerPC architecture.

“Freescale is the dominant player in the powertrain, which is what this agreement is mainly about,” said Drew. “We see ourselves gaining market share in infotainment, and elsewhere,” he continued. Drew added that the Freescale-ST agreement may have been prompted by a customer who required a second source supplier before agreeing to a PowerPC design-in.

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