Freescale Semiconductor

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Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.

Type	Private
Founded	Spin-off from Motorola in 2004
Headquarters	Austin, Texas, USA
Key people	Michel Mayer, CEO
Industry	Semiconductors
Revenue	$5.843 billion USD (2005)
Operating income	$600.00 million USD (2005)
Net income	$563.00 million USD (2005)
Employees	25,000
Website	www.freescale.com

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. is an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created from the semiconductor product sector of Motorola during 2004. Freescale focuses on the embedded and communications markets for their chips.

Freescale is among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders.

Motorola announced the spinoff on October 6, 2003. Freescale completed its IPO on July 16, 2004.

Freescale has also been a source of PowerPC microprocessor chips for Apple Computer's PowerBooks and Mac mini products until the Apple Intel transition in 2006.

In 2006 the business developed a microchip which stores information like hard drives. The chip, called magnetoresistive random-access memory (MRAM), contains data by relying on magnetic properties instead of an electrical charge. Freescale started commercial shipments of the 4-Mbit MRAM on July 10, 2006, with small volume sales priced at $25 per chip.

[edit] Buyout

On Friday, September 15, 2006 Freescale agreed to be bought out for the sum of $17.6 billion ($40 per share) by a consortium led by Blackstone Group LP. Share prices of $13 at the July 2004 IPO had risen to $39.35 in afterhours trading that Friday when the news, rumored that week, broke. A special shareholders meeting on November 13, 2006 voted to accept the buyout offer.[1] The purchase, which closed on December 1, 2006, is reportedly the largest private buyout of a technology company.[2] [3] [4] [5]