SCIENCE

In a demonstration of its continued commitment to its operation in Mexico, Freescale Semiconductor is growing its engineering, business process operations and software design capabilities in Mexico to serve global markets. Growth at the site will be focused in multiple areas, including analog and mixed signal design, business processes, and systems and applications.

“Our Guadalajara team continues to be an outstanding contributor to the global growth of Freescale,” said Henri Richard, senior vice president and chief sales and marketing officer at Freescale. “It is a credit to efforts of the team that we plan to expand our growth there from both an employee and business perspective in the coming year. We also want to thank the State of Jalisco and Federal governments, which have continuously supported our efforts in Guadalajara through support and economic incentives.”

“We are very pleased with the investment Freescale continues to make in the state of Jalisco and also with the mutually beneficial relationship the city of Guadalajara has with a technology leader like Freescale,” said Jalisco Governor Emilio Gonzalez Marquez.  “By having global companies such as Freescale build on their commitment to the region, we are strengthening our core competences in semiconductors, BPO and IT.”

Expansive facility with room to grow
The new Freescale Mexico Business and Technology Center is three times larger than the company’s previous facility in Guadalajara and offers nearly 22,000 square feet of additional space for future expansion. The facility will end the year with more than 250 Freescale employees and more than 80 partners and is large enough to accommodate more than 500 people with state-of-the-art laboratories for the medical, automotive, appliance and multimedia markets.

Freescale engineers at the facility develop applications using embedded processors and microcontrollers, sensors, RF, analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for the networking, automotive, consumer and industrial markets. The facility also houses customer service and post-sales support, direct and channel sales, field quality engineering, finance, information technology computer integrated manufacturing, supply chain, marketing and Mexican government relations staff.

“Our expansion in Guadalajara this year is evidenced by the creation of two additional software groups; one for inertial sensors and one for touch sensing and software design application-specific integrated circuits,” said Germán Hernández, Mexico country manager for Freescale. “We are also creating a customer care center in Mexico to support the Americas and continue the alignment of key business process operations.”

Freescale has maintained a strong presence in Mexico since its first Latin American facility opened in Guadalajara in 1968. Over the decades, the company has continued to expand its technology and sales presence throughout Mexico. In 2004, Freescale consolidated its IC design center operations in Guadalajara.

Freescale has an additional world-class design center in Campinas City, Brazil, near São Paulo. The Brazil Semiconductor Technology Center (BSTC) plays a key role in the company’s advanced microcontroller designs for automotive and industrial applications and serves as a strategic design resource for the joint development program between Freescale and STMicroelectronics.