Motorola’s (NYSE: MOT) Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS) announced that the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), a leading South Korean information technology R&D organization, intends to use Motorola’s DragonBall(tm) MX1 processor as a platform for creating a state-of-the-art home information appliance.

ETRI, the first research institute to develop and commercialize W-CDMA (wideband code-division multiple access) technology for mobile communication, intends to use the DragonBall MX1 in its Universal Information Appliance (UIA), an advanced intelligent personal client that will interact with a variety of home service applications to control and manage home appliances. Scheduled for initial release in 2002, the UIA will integrate Bluetooth(TM) wireless and CDMA communications functions on a single chip, and will support both Bluetooth technology-based SyncML and WAP browsers.

ETRI’s UIA effort is one of twelve strategic development projects to make up Korea’s Home Information Infrastructure initiative. This initiative, funded and spearheaded by the Asian country’s Ministry of Information and Communication, is aimed at revitalizing Korea’s electronics industry through the creation of innovative, first-to-market semiconductor, micro component, and mobile communication technology.

Products built on the DragonBall MX1 can leverage its microprocessor based on the ARM920T(TM) core with speeds up to 200 MHz. Additionally, the DragonBall MX1 provides the first on-chip Bluetooth wireless technology ready applications processor announced from a major worldwide semiconductor supplier.