BANGALORE, INDIA: Freescale Semiconductor holds a strong lead in the communications processor market according to reports recently issued by analyst group IDC.

The firm ranks Freescale number one with 52 percent of the market while its closest competitor holds on at 25 percent. IDC also predicts that the communications processor space will outperform other networking silicon categories in the years ahead despite a challenging macroeconomic environment.

Freescale’s strength in the communications processor market is based on the ongoing popularity of its ubiquitous PowerQUICC product line. For more than a decade, PowerQUICC technology has defined and embodied the communications processor.

Last year, Freescale reinforced its leadership position by unveiling a new brand of multicore communications platforms designed to enable the next era of networking. The next-generation evolution of the PowerQUICC product line, Freescale’s QorIQ multicore technology is designed to take embedded multicore to new levels of adoption and help developers migrate to multicore with confidence.

“Our studies show that Freescale remains the longstanding leader in the communications processor market,” said Aileen Arcilla, senior semiconductor research analyst for IDC. “Freescale continues to leverage the popularity of PowerQUICC processors with the industry’s leading equipment manufacturers and their network carrier customers and will seek to maintain its leadership with the forthcoming QorIQ line of multicore devices. In 2009 and beyond, Freescale and its competitors will need to monitor the acceptance of multicore as they all attempt to gain market share in one of the very few growing semiconductor market segments.”

"We are delighted to be recognized by IDC as the leader in communications processors," said Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Networking and Multimedia Group. "The communications market is poised for substantial innovation in the years ahead, and Freescale is leading the way with advanced technology and optimized solutions based on our PowerQUICC and QorIQ multicore platforms.”

Despite challenging macroeconomic conditions, IDC forecasts that growth will continue for the worldwide telecom/datacom semiconductor market over the next five years. IDC attributes this growth to carriers continuing to replace legacy infrastructure to support the growing volume and varying mix of network traffic (voice, video, and data) required to meet end user demands.

Freescale established the communications processor market in 1989 by delivering the industry's first multi-protocol microprocessor, and since then has shipped more than 185 million communications processor units. The versatile devices are used in routers, switches, digital line cards, wireless LAN access/aggregation points, unified threat management (UTM) appliances, voice over IP (VoIP) equipment, customer premises equipment, SOHO and enterprise routers, as well as printer, high-end imaging and storage applications.