ST-Ericsson was a multinational manufacturer of

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

products and

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...

s, supplying to mobile device manufacturers. ST-Ericsson was a 50/50 joint venture of

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

and

STMicroelectronics STMicroelectronics Naamloze vennootschap, NV (commonly referred to as ST or STMicro) is a European multinational corporation, multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the largest of such companies in Europe. ...

established on 3 February 2009 and dissolved 2 August 2013. Headquartered in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, it was a

fabless Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclu ...

company, outsourcing

semiconductor manufacturing Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuits (ICs) such as microprocessors, microcontrollers, and memories (such as Random-access memory, RAM and flash memory). It is a ...

to foundry companies. Both Ericsson and STMicroelectronics appointed four directors to the board with Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson, serving as the chairman of the board and Carlo Bozotti, President and CEO of STMicroelectronics, as the vice-chairman.

History

ST-Ericsson was formed on 3 February 2009 when STMicroelectronics and Ericsson completed the merger of Ericsson Mobile Platforms and ST-NXP Wireless into a 50/50 joint venture. On 20 August 2008, STMicroelectronics and Ericsson announced their interest to merge their wireless semiconductor businesses. ST contributed its multimedia and connectivity products as well as their 2G/

EDGE Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...

platform and 3G offering. Ericsson contributed its 3G and

3GPP Long Term Evolution In telecommunications, long-term evolution (LTE) is a standard for wireless broadband communication for cellular mobile devices and data terminals. It is considered to be a "transitional" 4G technology, and is therefore also referred to as 3 ...

(LTE) platform technology. The merger followed an existing strategic co-operation between Ericsson Mobile Platforms and ST-NXP Wireless. Ericsson also had a venture with

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

called

Sony Ericsson Sony Mobile Communications Inc., originally Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, was a Multinational corporation, multinational consumer electronics and telecommunications company, best known for its Mobile phones, mobile phone products. The ...

during 2001–2012. On 11 December 2012, ST-Ericsson was on the brink of shutdown after its parent company

decided to move out of the JV, citing loss of market share due to ST-Ericsson failing to attain

Break-even Break-even (or break even), often abbreviated as B/E in finance (sometimes called point of equilibrium), is the point of balance making neither a Profit (economics), profit nor a loss. It involves a situation when a business makes just enough reve ...

. Since ST-Ericsson came into being in 2009,

has slipped from 5 to 7 in global semiconductor firms' rakings. On 18 March 2013, the parent companies announced that the joint venture was to be closed down, with the parent companies taking over parts, but not all, of its operation and products. On 28 May 2013, ST-Ericsson announced that they would sell the assets and intellectual property rights for its mobile connectivity Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) to

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

for $90 million. On 5 August 2013 Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) announced the closing of the transaction for the split up of ST-Ericsson. This follows the announcement the companies made on 18 March 2013 on the chosen strategic option for the future of the joint venture. Effective 2 August 2013 Ericsson has taken on the design, development and sales of the LTE multimode thin modem solutions, including 2G, 3G and 4G interoperability. ST has taken on the existing ST-Ericsson products, other than LTE multimode thin modems, and the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) connectivity solution sold to a third party, and related business as well as certain assembly and test facilities.

Ericsson Mobile Platforms

Ericsson Mobile Platforms had been formed in 2001 from Ericsson Mobile Communications during the European telecom crisis around the year 2000. It was a pure platform company after the transfer of all handset products to SonyEricsson, later

Sony Mobile Sony Mobile Communications Inc., originally Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, was a Multinational corporation, multinational consumer electronics and telecommunications company, best known for its Mobile phones, mobile phone products. The ...

. At the forming of ST-Ericsson, Ericsson Mobile Platforms had roughly 3100 employees. Some of EMPs customers were Flextronics, HTC, LG, NEC, Sagem, Sharp and of course Sony Ericsson. The main focus in the company was for the eight years it existed, to develop a platform for

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technolog ...

. Their main development centers were situated in

Lund Lund (, ;"Lund"
(US) and ) is a city in the provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, southern Swed ...

, Sweden and with other three developments centers in

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is a town in Hampshire, situated in south-central England across a valley at the source of the River Loddon on the western edge of the North Downs. It is the largest settlement in Hampshire without city status in the United King ...

(UK),

Research Triangle Park Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States; it occupies in North Carolina and hosts more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. It is owned and managed by the Research Triangle Foundation, a private non-profi ...

, North Carolina (US), and

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

(Germany). In addition, it had R&D, sales and customer support teams in Tokyo (Japan), Shanghai (China), Taipei (Taiwan), Seoul (South Korea), Grimstad (Norway) and Nuremberg (Germany). It provided mobile terminal technology to customers who wanted to develop and produce mobile phones for the

GPRS General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's Global System for Mobile Communications, global system for mobile communications (GSM). Networks and mobile devices wit ...

and

WCDMA The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses wideband code-division multiple access (W- CDMA) radio access technology to offer greater spectral efficienc ...

mobile standards. EMP and, Ericsson as a whole, donated resources to standardization bodies such as

3GPP The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is an umbrella term for a number of standards organizations which develop protocols for mobile telecommunications. Its best known work is the development and maintenance of: * GSM and related 2G and ...

, OMA, JCP and OMTP.

Portfolio and mobile products

Before joining the joint venture, ST Microelectronics' wireless division had been working on the

Nomadik Nomadik is a family of microprocessors for multimedia applications from STMicroelectronics, and later ST-NXP Wireless. It was originally based on the ARM9 (and later ARM11) ARM architecture(s), and was designed specifically for use in mobile device ...

application processor platform since the STn8800, which won the Microprocessor Report Analysts' Choice Awards in 2003. Likewise, the NXP part of the company had worked on a product named '' Nexperia''. The Nomadik platform was chosen as a starting point for development of new application processors within the company. October third, 2008 the predecessor Ericsson Mobile Platforms showcased a handheld prototype for

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a mobile telephony standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement ** LTE Advanced Pro, a further enhancement * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers * Leukotrie ...

(fourth generation of mobile telephony). At this time, the company stated that the technology would reach the market by roughly 2011. In December 2009 the LTE-platform had a name: ''M710'' and it was presented as a multimode-device that would also be able to handle

HSDPA High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the performance of existing 3G mobile telecommunic ...

. 1 November 2010 there were statements about a product named ''M700'' and it was said that this would deliver data speeds of 100 Mbit/s downstream and 50 Mbit/s upstream. Starting 15 February 2011 the company presented a whole family of products: * A series of application processors under the brand name ''Nova'' such as A9600, A9540 and A9500. * A series of modem products under the brand name ''Thor'' such as M5720, M5730, M5780, M7300, M7400 and M7450. * A series of combined products with both application processor and modem under the brand name ''

NovaThor NovaThor was a platform consisting of integrated System-on-chip, System on Chips (SoC) and modems for smartphones and tablets developed by ST-Ericsson, a 50/50 joint venture of Ericsson and STMicroelectronics established on February 3, 2009. ST-Eri ...

'' such as T5008, U4500, U8500, L9540, L8540 and L8580. Many of these products appear to have failed to reach the market. In the press release regarding the last product L8580 it is mentioned that U8500 has been mass-produced and that L8540 is available in samples since the end of 2012. The quarterly results for the fourth quarter 2012 states that the company has shipped 10.7 million units of U8500 during that quarter. ST-Ericsson's Chinese subsidiary, T3G was acquired in December 2008 and has been developing platforms for the TD-SCDMA mobile standard since 2003.

Locations

Incorporated in Switzerland and headquartered in Geneva, ST-Ericsson employed around 6,700 people worldwide, more than 85 per cent of whom work in R&D. ST-Ericsson's main centers are in France,

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, Germany, UK,

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, Singapore, China, Japan and

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

References

External links