News | September 16, 2008

NEC Electronics And ELMOS To Enter Strategic Partnership

KAWASAKI, Japan & DORTMUND, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NEC Electronics Corporation ("NEC Electronics") and ELMOS Semiconductor AG ("ELMOS") are going to join forces demonstrated by entering into a worldwide long-term partnership. The agreement will encompass the joint development, cross-use of engineering and manufacturing services as well as common marketing of products for the automotive and industrial markets.

Customers of both companies will benefit from the combined strengths of high performance devices from NEC Electronics, like the 8- to 32-bit microcontroller series, together with robust and reliable application-specific, analog / mixed-signal chips from ELMOS.

"Combining the core competences and related technologies from both companies will enable us to enhance our market position – a gain for both companies," says Shinichi Iwamoto, Vice President of NEC Electronics, responsible for Microcomputer Operations Unit. "The teams already started to work on first projects and made a lot of progress."

By mutual access to the partner's IP portfolio, the partnership offers additional opportunities for both companies with innovative joint products. First concepts address smart microcontrollers with enhanced functionality, intelligent system base chips including communication transceivers, and smart power devices with secure operation.

"With NEC Electronics we have found a well established and experienced partner. We are both looking forward to synchronize our individual product roadmaps by addressing the competitive advantages for the customers by well tuned system solutions," comments Dr. Anton Mindl, CEO of ELMOS Semiconductor AG. "We already received a very positive feedback from our customers."

Both, Iwamoto and Mindl, are convinced that the long-term partnership will unveil so far untapped revenues at both companies due to coordinated joint products, adjusted product portfolios, and joint penetration of regional markets. In addition, the cooperation will benefit from the worldwide marketing and selling activities of both organizations. Due to a different focus of today's business, the analysis showed that the product overlap between both partners is negligible.

About NEC Electronics Corporation

NEC Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723) specializes in semiconductor products encompassing advanced technology solutions for the high-end computing and broadband networking markets; system solutions for the mobile handset, PC peripheral, automotive and digital consumer markets; and multi-market solutions for a wide range of customer applications. NEC Electronics Corporation has subsidiaries worldwide including NEC Electronics America, Inc. (www.am.necel.com) and NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH (www.eu.necel.com). More information about NEC Electronics worldwide can be found at www.necel.com.

About ELMOS Semiconductor AG

ELMOS Semiconductor AG (FWB:ELG) is a leading developer and producer of customer-specific system solutions in the automotive sector. Based on the modular high-voltage CMOS technology, a great amount of analog mixed-signal circuitry elements such as voltage regulators, analog/digital converters, power-drives and NVM storage offer a huge range of integration possibilities for customers' ideas. In addition, MEMS-based sensor systems and dedicated packages both developed and manufactured within the ELMOS-Group, enable ELMOS to supply silicon-based microsystems. About 90 percent of sales are achieved with ASICs for automotive electronics. ELMOS is listed on the Prime Standard of the German Stock Exchange. For additional information about ELMOS Semiconductor, visit www.elmos.de.

Information in the press releases, including product prices and specifications is current on the date of the press announcement, but is subject to change without prior notice.

Copyright 2008 Business Wire All Rights Reserved.