EE Times

March 11, 2005 (4:28 PM EST)

MANHASSET, N.Y. — SigmaTel Inc. and A-MAX Technology Ltd. have announced a strategic partnership to develop and manufacture portable digital audio devices.

A-MAX (Hong Kong) is an Innovative Design Services (IDS) supplier of mobile music solutions to the portable consumer electronics industry. The company has consistently been a customer for digital audio SoC solutions from SigmaTel (Austin, Tx.) used within their MP3 player product line.

A-MAX has two R&D centers in China, a wholly owned ISO9002 approved manufacturing plant in Shenzhen, and three sales offices in China, Germany and the U.S. The company expects to quadruple its monthly production capacity in 2005 to facilitate the expected continued growth in demand for portable digital audio devices.

``As recently as Q404, A-MAX was our largest customer, with purchases representing more than 18 percent of our total revenue,`` said Ron Edgerton, president and chief executive of SigmaTel, in a statement.

SigmaTel sold more than 22.5 million audio SoC chips in 2004.