Strategic alliances and industry partnerships are becoming an increasingly important factor in the semiconductor industry, but they have been an integral part of ST’s strategy ever since the creation of the Company in 1987.  As a result, ST has an unrivalled history of fostering mutually beneficial relationships with customers, suppliers, competitors, universities, research institutions and European research programs.

Strategic alliances with key customers, a culture pioneered by ST, provide the Company with important complementary system and applications know-how and insight into trends in the end markets, while giving the customer access to ST’s process technologies and manufacturing structure, as well as the opportunity to share some of their product development costs and to reduce time to market.  ST has entered into several strategic alliances with customers, including Alcatel, Bosch, Continental AG, Hewlett-Packard, Marelli, Nokia, Pioneer, Seagate, Thomson, and Western Digital, among others, and many of these relationships have been thriving for more than 20 years.  ST is now actively working to capitalize on its experience and the breadth of its technology portfolio to expand the number of its customer alliances, targeting top-tier OEMs in the United States, Europe, and in Asia.

While continuing to compete vigorously for sales and market share, partnerships with other semiconductor industry manufacturers permit ST to multiply its investment in costly research and development and manufacturing resources to mutual advantage for technology development. For example, ST is a member of the International Semiconductor Development Alliance (ISDA) CMOS Technology Alliance with IBM and other partners for the development of 32nm and 22nm CMOS process technologies and is collaborating with IBM at its site at Crolles, France, on the development of value-added application-specific variants of the core CMOS technology.  ST is also working with Freescale on the joint development of advanced microcontrollers with embedded Flash for the automotive marketplace.

ST has also been very active in forming key partnerships in the wireless arena. In mid 2008, ST and NXP combined their key wireless semiconductor operations in a joint venture, in which ST held 80%. In February 2009, ST acquired the minority stake from NXP and merged its wireless operations with Ericsson Mobile Platforms to create ST-Ericsson, a 50/50 joint venture focusing on semiconductors and platforms for mobile applications.

Close cooperation with suppliers is also very important as it facilitates timely and effective development of the right materials, technologies and tools, and their seamless deployment in ST’s design and manufacturing process. For this reason, ST has also established joint development programs with leading equipment and materials suppliers such as Air Liquide, Applied Materials, ASM Lithography, Canon, Gemalto, Hewlett-Packard, KLA-Tencor, LAM Research, MEMC, Teradyne, and Wacker, and with leading Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tool producers, including Cadence, CoWare, Mentor Graphics and Synopsys.

ST has numerous development partnerships that focus on specific products or technologies.  These include partnerships with Veredus Laboratories and Mobidiag for applications of the In-Check platform for the detection of Avian flu and sepsis, respectively, and with Debiotech for an innovative insulin nanopump. ST and CEA, a French public technological research organisation, are also collaborating, among other things, on the development of new miniaturized energy sources such as solid-state micro-batteries and micro-fuel cells for clean energy generation.

In joint R&D programs, ST plays a key role in many of Europe’s advanced collaborative research programs such as CATRENE (Cluster for Application and Technology Research in Europe on NanoElectronics) and European Technology Platforms such as ENIAC (European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council) and ARTEMIS (Advanced Research and Technology for Embedded Intelligence and Systems).  Additionally, ST works with many universities around the world, including major universities in Europe, the US, Japan and China, and with prestigious research institutions such as CEA-Leti and IMEC.

In manufacturing, ST has operated a back-end assembly and test plant in Shenzhen, China since 1998 as part of its joint-venture agreement with Shenzhen High Tech Industrial Company Ltd (SHIC). In early 2010, ST teamed with Enel and Sharp to create a joint venture for the manufacture of innovative solar panels at a plant in Catania, Italy.

Updated March  2010