Freescale Discovery Lab Celebrates a Year of Innovation
Freescale Semiconductor has celebrated the first year of the Freescale Discovery Lab, an incubator where inventors of the next big thing pursue high risk, high reward ideas. Based in Austin, Texas at the company's headquarters in Oak Hill, the lab brings together Freescale's best minds from across the company and around the globe to test and prove unique ideas that offer significant improvements on existing technologies or techniques.
Inventors at the Discovery Lab are working on a variety of technology from exploring alternative materials, creating cutting edge packaging technology to architecting new systems and software that will enable next generation products to fuel major market trends such as IoT (Internet of Things), SDN (Software Defined Networks), and ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). Every employee is encouraged to submit ideas and when accepted, that employee is assigned to the lab in Austin to work full-time on its realisation. Since its opening, over 200 ideas have been submitted, and more than 20 employees are currently working on nine projects. The Freescale Discovery Lab has forged partnerships with numerous domestic and international universities, and a second lab will soon break ground in Toulouse, France.
Freescale has a proud history of innovation and has played a significant role in the evolution of embedded technologies. Freescale delivered the first automotive microcontroller designed to improve fuel efficiency and control emissions; it also helped transmit the first words from the Moon with its radio frequency (RF) technology.
"We couldn't be more proud of what the Freescale Discovery Lab has accomplished in such a short period of time," said Gregg Lowe, Freescale president and chief executive officer. "These labs will continue to be a haven for disruptive innovation that nurtures new ideas, bringing about dramatic improvements in technology that change the face of our industry."
Lowe and David Kramer, director of Freescale Discovery Lab, hosted an event last week with Freescale employees around the globe to celebrate the lab's success and the announcement of the new Toulouse lab opening later this year.
"It's incredibly rewarding to witness the types of game-changing ideas that can lead to new products that dramatically improve what exists or even create entirely new markets right from within the walls and from the minds of our employees," said Kramer. "Freescale has always been about challenging the status quo in our industry and continually proving these never-before-seen concepts helps us maintain that leadership."
