Saloon Motion Technology, a Taiwan-based design house of NAND flash and specialty RF IC microcontroller units (MCUs), attained a global market share of 10-15% for its eMMC MCUs in 2013 and aims for a share of 20-25% for 2014, according to company president and CEO Wallace Kou.

　　Silicon Motion will focus its 2014 operation on MCUs used in eMMC and SSDs (solid-state drives), Kou said.

　　Except for the China market, all tablets have been equipped with eMMC, Kou noted. However, eMMC is expected to be adopted for tablets in the China market in 2014 and Silicon Motion will cooperate with China-based IC designers Allwinner Technology and Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics to compete for orders, Kou indicated. For applications of eMMC for other than mobile terminal devices such as smart TVs and cars, Silicon Motion has entered the supply chain for China-based vendors Haier and Lenovo, Kou pointed out.

　　To tap the SSD MCU market, Silicon Motion will cooperate with flash memory producers or memory module makers in 2014, Kou said. In addition, Silicon Motion has developed MCUs for use in TLC (triple-level cell) NAND flash and 3D NAND flash, Kou indicated.

　　In order to diversify its product line, Silicon Motion has stepped into the development of communication-use IC solutions, Kou said. Silicon Motion has developed mobile TV SoC solutions based on the Japan-based digital TV standard ISDB-T, with its solution to be adopted by Sharp and Sony, and shipments to begin in the second quarter of 2014, Kou pointed out.

　　Silicon Motion posted consolidated revenues of US$57.13 million, gross margin of 48.8% and net profit of US$10.83 million for the third quarter of 2013.