Motorola to Spin-off Semiconductor Unit

According to CMP Media's Electronic Buyers' News, Motorola Inc. is spinning off its Semiconductor Components Group from the rest of its chip operations. The group, which primarily sells standard discrete, analog, and logic chips, will become "a separate and distinct business entity," according to an internal Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS) memo obtained by the industry newspaper.

Motorola intends to give the group a new name, and possibly sell it. The spin-off, the latest of many changes within SPS in the past two years, is part of Motorola's desire to focus on its core, higher-margin systems-solutions semiconductor lines, such as microprocessors, microcontrollers, and digital-signal processors.