New Representative Office in Singapore (9906)

MICRONAS expands activities in the ASEAN, Taiwan, India, and Australia

Singapore, July 2, 1999 - MICRONAS, Europe's biggest independent developer and producer of highly integrated mixed-signal ICs, microcontrollers, and Hall-effect sensors for applications in consumer electronics, multimedia, and automotive electronics, open a local Representative Office in Singapore. This office will function as a service hub for a large catchment area: the ASEAN (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand), Taiwan, India, and Australia.

The office starts today with a staff of three; president is Christian Schlemo. The Singapore Representative Office will offer consultancy, application support, and technical support. Another objective is an increase of the company's market shares, especially in the consumer electronics and multimedia markets of the ASEAN.

For MICRONAS as a leading provider of DSP-based ICs and sensors, the ASEAN markets are of growing importance. President Christian Schlemo puts it this way: "We have made the experience that nowadays the best way to conquer a market is to get into close touch with it. This is especially true for dynamic markets such as the ones we are active in: consumer electronics and multimedia electronics. The ASEAN is a promising region and therefore of particular interest to us. Plus, with a local office, we can offer our customers the services they prefer to get on the spot. The Singapore Office will operate as a service hub for our present and future customers."

Market Segments Served

Of particular interest to the ASEAN consumer electronics market are the MICRONAS solutions for all-digital TV sets, VCRs, multimedia PCs, and set-top boxes. All products offer an optimized function/cost feature set and can be used globally. With more than 50 million MSP units sold worldwide, MICRONAS is world leader in stereo sound processing for TVs. Other recent developments for consumer applications include chipsets for MP3 (MPEG 2/ Layer 3) decoding as being used in portable FLASH players, MP3-CD-ROM players, or WorldSpace DAB satellite receivers. With their ICs, MICRONAS provide system developers with a whole range of complete, near-to-production hardware and software system solutions.

In the automotive sector, MICRONAS will be present with their sensor solutions, namely integrated CMOS Hall sensors, and embedded-control ICs.

Production Capacities

MICRONAS are not only innovative chip designers, but also reliable suppliers when it comes to large-scale production: A brand-new wafer fab equipped for the processing of submicron mixed-signal ICs has started operating in spring 1998 at Freiburg (Germany) complementing the fab already existing in this place. Moreover, production redundancy is ensured by second sources established through partnerships in the Far East.