The future of Freescale Semiconductor and NXP is in connecting and securing the Internet of Things, with a major focus on automotive. The CEOs of both companies outlined their collective vision for the merger, which will likely close in November. The merger will create the fifth-largest non-memory semiconductor company,  The goal isn’t to generate massive cost savings, but to provide more well-rounded options for IoT customers.
Leading semiconductor companies ？ Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom/Avago, and Texas Instruments ？ all have narrowly focused strategies that focus on microcontrollers, communications, and analog. This leaves a prime area for the new NXP to focus on.
Freescale recently announced several families of microcontrollers ？ S32K microcontrollers for automotive, the security-focused Kinetis K8x and comms-enabled Kinetis K4X ？ though it remains the company’s most fragmented business segment. NXP also has a microcontroller business based on ARM cores, and the merger will likely see an inclusion of both companies’ chips.
NXP’s success in digital signal processing and silicon tuning for car radios, noting that its technology must still port over to a processor to support automated driver assistance system (ADAS). Combining its infotainment offerings with Freescale’s i.MX processor would allow the chip giant to “deliver the whole car in one box.”Freescale-NXP must invest in networking software and IP to enhance its IoT strategy; a communications network must be built out and stable before it can support the 20 billion devices expected by 2020.