ST-Ericsson and STMicroelectronics to Support Adobe Flash Player 10.1 on Smartphones and Other Devices

GENEVA, Feb. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- STMicroelectronics, one of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers, and ST-Ericsson, a global leader in mobile platforms and semiconductors, are working with Adobe to accelerate Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR® on their powerful chipsets with best-in-class multimedia and graphics capabilities, used in smartphones and connected digital-home devices.

Led by Adobe, the Open Screen Project aims to deliver a consistent and widely-adopted runtime environment for both web content and standalone applications across all devices leveraging the Flash Platform. ST-Ericsson's and STMicroelectronics' collaboration with Adobe will make it straightforward for manufacturers to develop portable and consumer products that can support a rich multimedia web browsing experience, without any compromises.

ST-Ericsson and Adobe will work together to integrate Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR into ST-Ericsson platforms. The first smartphone platform ready to support Flash Player 10.1 is the U8500, which has best in-class multimedia and imaging assets with industry leadership in system performance.

"By providing built-in support for one of the most commonly-used rich-media technology on the internet, enabling video streaming and other highly-popular web services, we are taking the smartphone browsing experience to another level," said Marc Cetto, Senior Vice President and head of 3G and Multimedia division at ST-Ericsson. "Our highly power-efficient smartphone platforms are well suited to delivering the engaging Flash enabled multimedia experience that people have become accustomed to on PCs."

"Flash extends consumers' multimedia experience by adding to the broadcast services' seamless access to internet content and applications," said Laurent Remont, Director of Advanced System Architecture, Home Entertainment and Displays, STMicroelectronics.  "Our collaboration with Adobe will deliver implementations of Flash for the digital home on current and recently announced set-top box and digital TV chips, enabling consumers to view on-demand high-definition video, 3D graphics, browse the full web, and interact with rich applications on their televisions."

"ST-Ericsson and ST are set to play a critical role in bringing the full Flash based Web experience to the hundreds of millions of people worldwide now using smartphones netbooks and other mobile devices, said Bryant Macy, senior director, Product Marketing, Platform Business at Adobe. As the smartphone and consumer electronics markets open up to the more than two million Flash developers, I am sure we will see another boost of creativity and innovation that will further enrich consumers' web experience."

About ST-Ericsson

ST-Ericsson is a world leader in developing and delivering a complete portfolio of innovative mobile platforms and cutting-edge wireless semiconductor solutions across the broad spectrum of mobile technologies.  The company is a leading supplier to the top handset manufacturers and ST-Ericsson's products and technologies enable more than half of all phones in use today.  The company generated pro-forma sales of about USD 2.7 billion in 2009.  ST-Ericsson was established as a 50/50 joint venture by STMicroelectronics and Ericsson in February 2009, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.  More information on ST-Ericsson is available at www.stericsson.com.

About STMicroelectronics

STMicroelectronics is a global leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications with innovative semiconductor solutions. ST aims to be the undisputed leader in multimedia convergence and power applications leveraging its vast array of technologies, design expertise and combination of intellectual property portfolio, strategic partnerships and manufacturing strength. In 2009, the Company's net revenues were $8.51 billion. Further information on ST can be found at www.st.com.

SOURCE STMicroelectronics