December 2012
VIEW FROM THE TOP

Ritu Favre
Senior Vice President, RF Division, Freescale Semiconductor

Q: The importance of sustaining and developing technology has reached a point where states and cities are more actively building relationships with universities and recruiting high-tech companies. Good examples are New York State’s “East Coast Silicon Valley” and several cities in Ohio. However, there continues to be a shortage of engineering graduates, especially those focusing on RF and microwave technology. What would your company do (or is doing) to help promote careers in microwave engineering?

A: Freescale continues to actively mentor students and fund research programs at various premier institutions of RF Engineering, including Cardiff University, University of Waterloo, Georgia Tech and University of Limoges among others. Our participation includes funding numerous research and development programs on current and future PA architectures and technologies. Often we bring in students involved in RF research activities for internships at Freescale to give them exposure to the industry. Freescale’s Engineering Rotation Program serves as an excellent training ground for engineering graduates of related disciplines who want to pursue a career in RF engineering. In addition, we have grass roots initiatives where we work with students at local high schools and universities. 

Q: For those of you serving the military market, what do you expect 2013 will bring in terms of opportunities in this sector?

A: Freescale sells Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) RF products, some of which eventually find use in military applications. However, we do not track these separately.

Q: If your company serves the commercial markets, are you encouraged by any particular emerging application or technology?

A: The outlook for cellular markets remains bright. Consumers’ ever-increasing appetite for more data and bandwidth continues to fuel demand for RF technologies. Furthermore, we anticipate that strong sales of iPhone5 and other LTE-enabled phones will act as a catalyst for LTE adoption worldwide and spur a new investment cycle in cellular infrastructure.

Base station technologies that will be the most sought after in the years to come will be those that: enable significant improvements in energy efficiency, allow equipment consolidation through carrier and spectrum aggregation, and improve a network’s data throughput and capacity. Toward this end, we continue to invest heavily in R&D activities in the areas of energy efficiency, wideband amplifiers and enablers of hybrid network architectures.

Finally, while we anticipate markets for ISM, avionics, land mobile and broadcast to remain steady, our recently revamped product portfolio, including devices with enhanced ruggedness and our Airfast™ products, are expected to help us continue to increase our momentum in these markets.

Q: Last year, we asked what impact the global economic crisis was having on the markets you serve and on how you run your business. What is your current perspective?

A: Globally, we find that subscriber growth remains unabated. We have seen some slowdown in operator spending in Western Europe; however, this is being offset by other developed markets such as the United States, Japan and Korea that continue to invest heavily in next-generation 4G networks. 3G spending in the world’s largest market for infrastructure, China, also remains strong.

Q: What countries or regions do you believe will provide the greatest growth potential for the wireless industry in 2013?

A: Past history shows that every few years the mobile infrastructure industry pauses to catch a breath, followed by a period of solid growth. We are seeing signs that the coming year will spur this next cycle of investments. In 2013, we expect 4G transition to start in China; 3G spending to pick up in India; pent-up demand to catch up in Europe; and the LTE spend to hold steady in North America. ♦