Sharp Microelectronics Honored with Frost & Sullivan 2004 Product Innovation Award for its BlueStreak Line of Microcontrollers and System-on-Chip
CAMAS, Wash.,
June 2, 2004
– Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas today announced its BlueStreak™ line of microcontrollers and System-on-Chip (SoC) has been selected by Frost & Sullivan for the 2004 Product Innovation Award. Sharp is the first electronics company recognized by Frost & Sullivan’s Product Innovation Award.
The Frost & Sullivan Product Innovation Award is presented each year to the company that has best demonstrated excellence in new products and technologies within their industry. Winners are selected based on extensive analyst interviews, which are designed to evaluate the degree of innovation and customer satisfaction present in both a company’s new products and products under development.
The award commends Sharp for meeting the needs of design engineers with its line of high performance, ARMTM-based MCU and SoC components, and its support for a wide range of consumer and industrial applications. As an example of product excellence, Frost & Sullivan cited the Fisher-Price PixterTM Color digital creativity system, which is supported by the Sharp microcontroller platform.
“Sharp is honored to receive this influential award,” said Christophe Chene, Senior Director of IC Marketing for Sharp Microelectronics. “The award recognizes our many customer and product successes this year, and underscores Sharp’s consistent ability to provide design engineers worldwide with low-cost, high performance solutions for a range of applications.”
Frost & Sullivan analysts use several criteria in its evaluation, including product significance in the industry, competitive advantage, innovation, acceptance in the marketplace and value-add to customers. Sharp was selected in part because of its ability to offer total system solutions, including the easy integration of its MCUs and SoCs with company-developed LCDs, optoelectronics and Flash memory. The award also recognizes Sharp’s latest additions to the BlueStreak line, the LH79524 and LH79525 SoCs, which meet design engineers’ requirements for low cost, high performance, and connectivity through USB and Ethernet MAC functionality on-chip.
"Leveraging its technical expertise in System-on-Chip design and its established presence in the LCD display market, Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas integrated, low-cost microcontroller solutions using ARM-based architecture for the consumer market,” said Ramanan Rajagopalan, Research Analyst, Frost & Sullivan. “This strategy has enabled the company to cater to an entire spectrum of applications within the consumer and industrial market segments."
In selecting Sharp for the award, analysts also recognized the company for providing engineers with an extensive software library, and third party software and hardware development tools to facilitate time to market and reduce overall development costs. Frost & Sullivan called out Sharp’s microcontroller revenue growth, which has tripled in the last six months as compared to the previous six-month period.
In past years, Frost & Sullivan has recognized other well-known electronics companies, such as, Infineon, Philips, and Texas Instruments for achievements in engineering leadership, competitive strategy, and pricing strategy respectively.
About Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas
Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas, Camas, Wash., is a U.S.-based company and a division of Sharp Electronics Corporation, which is a subsidiary of Sharp Corporation, Osaka, Japan. Sharp is a worldwide developer of core digital technologies that are playing an integral role in shaping the next generation of electronic products for consumer and business needs. Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas offers breakthrough memory, LCD, optoelectronics, CCD, RF/IR, microcontroller and system-on-chip components, along with packaging and integration skills that help design engineers throughout North and South America bring their ambitious ideas to market. Sharp Microelectronics was recently recognized by Frost & Sullivan as the 2004 Product Innovation Award winner for its line of BlueStreak microcontrollers and System-on-Chip. Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas is dedicated to improving people’s lives through the use of advanced technology and a commitment to innovation, quality, value and design. For more information, visit www.sharpsma.com.
About Frost & Sullivan
Founded in 1961, Frost & Sullivan is recognized as a global leader in growth consulting. Frost & Sullivan Awards are presented to companies that demonstrate excellence in their industry through diligence, commitment, and innovative business strategies required to advance in the global marketplace. Frost & Sullivan rigorously analyzes specific criteria to determine award recipients in a vast variety of market industries and landscapes. For further information, visit www.frost.com.
Note: All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective companies.
ARM is a registered trademark of ARM Limited. ARM7, ARM9 and ARM922T are trademarks of ARM Limited. All other brands or product names are the property of their respective holders. “ARM” is used to represent ARM Holdings plc (LSE: ARM and Nasdaq: ARMHY); its operating company ARM Limited; and the regional subsidiaries ARM INC.; ARM KK; ARM Korea Ltd.; ARM Taiwan; ARM France SAS; and ARM Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd.,; and ARM Belgium N.V.
Contacts:
Jessica Morrison
Young & Roehr Group
503.222.0626 ext. 717
jmorrison@young-roehr.com
Jamie Frizzell
Frost & Sullivan
210.247.2496
jfrizzell@frost.com
|