The proposed merger of NXP and Freescale will spawn a large company, that much is true. Nonetheless, the new company will not be a substantially different one. At the very least, the combined giant will be equipped with the tools it needs to guarantee its survival in a consolidating chip industry.

Assuming the deal closes as expected before the end of the year, executives are confident they can shave $200 million off annual 2016 costs largely from administrative overlap and expanded buying power. The savings could expand to a maximum $500 million/year at some undetermined point in the future, executives said. However, they are not prepared yet to set any targets for accelerating growth in revenues or profits.

As part of the deal, NXP will sell its high-performance RF unit in a nod to its overlap with a stronger unit at Freescale and to avoid regulatory issues. Rick Clemmer, CEO of NXP and planned CEO of the merged company, said he does not anticipate any plant closures.

The guidelines suggest layoffs will be limited, especially among engineering ranks. However, executives have yet to work out many details, including overlap in the two companies' ARM Cortex-M MCUs lines.

The combined company would have more than $10 billion in annual revenues, becoming the world's ninth largest semiconductor company. It would easily surpass rivals ST and Renesas at about $7.3 billion each, however it would still be a notch below Texas Instruments and Toshiba.

Clemmer correctly highlights the merged NXP would be a leader in automotive chips. The sector is growing rapidly as cars become more digital, networked and electrically powered, but it still represents one of the relatively smaller slices of the electronics pie.

Even with the merger, the new NXP would have only a 13 per cent market share, a shade above the nearest competitors at 11 per cent and nine per cent. "The area of most [product] overlap [in the deal] is likely for automotive MCUs," said Christopher Rommel, analyst for VDC Research Group.

Executives also highlight the company would be a close second, by its own count, in general-purpose MCUs. VDC has a different tally, pegging the new NXP at a 17 per cent share versus 25 per cent for Renesas, the market leader.

However you count it, the MCU space is highly fragmented and hotly competitive. All the players are adopting ARM Cortex-M cores, making differentiation increasingly difficult.

By: DocMemory
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