Since the NXP/Freescale merger announcement a year ago, I have not been disappointed in the results as the merger was completed in December 2015. At CES in January this year, NXP partnered with BRAGI, and announced the world’s first wireless earphones (A combination design using Near Field Magnetic (NFM) Induction technology with an ARM processor for smart hearables), a very power-efficient Bluetooth Low Energy IC for the huge wearables market, a comprehensive Smart Home Solution and finally, a Radar technology in CMOS the size of a postage stamp that helps accelerate Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) adoption being field tested by Google for the fast-growing automotive market.

Just recently on February 24, 2016 NXP introduced a new mobile payments NFC solution for public transit systems. This effort came out of a partnership with Xiaomi Systems in which Xiaomi developed their next-gen flagship Mi5 with NXP’s Secure Element and Near Field Communications (NFC) solution which will have an effect on mobile payment adoption in China—a huge market for such a function (there are currently 400 million transit cards in circulation in China, and many card holders are expected to transition to more convenient and secure payment solutions, such as mobile payments via smartphones). The Mi5 was just recently launched at MWC in Barcelona.

The clever selection of partners in these very large growth markets and the combination of solutions by the partners and NXP/Freescale accelerate their path to market leadership and will surely propel NXP/Freescale’s quick growth ramp going forward.

What do you think of the NXP/Freescale combination? Has it met your expected outcome?