At ST's annual field trip meeting, held in London early June, Carlo Bozotti, president and CEO of ST, said he was taking a careful look at several product families with a view to divesting them. Between three and five product families could go within the matter of months, he stated.

STMicroelectronics (Geneva, Switzerland) held a press and analysts conference on Wednesday (July 23). In a Q&A session, Bozotti reiterated ST's intention to divest or separate product families. However, the number and names of product families in the hot seat remained undisclosed.

"In terms of separation, yes, indeed, we are working on two fronts," stated Bozotti. First, he explained, "We are working on the restructuring of our manufacturing infrastructure. We want to move from the 25 manufacturing centers that we had in 2005 to 12-13 manufacturing centers. With the separation of the Flash [memory business] and the other initiatives, we are making big progress."

The second action is on the product portfolio. Bozotti commented: "There are a number of families that are under scrutiny. Of course, the size of this business is not at the same level as the Flash memory business. But, we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars."

Bozotti explained that the way to proceed consists of a combination of various approaches. He declared: "The first one is of course to sell. The second one is to venture, but guaranteeing the financial deconsolidation. The third option is to simply close and discontinue the activity."

Unfortunately, Bozotti did not reveal what members of the press and analysts were dying to know: the names of the product divisions.

He indeed declared: "What I cannot describe is the names of these product divisions. I think this is an important program at ST. We want to move on not only with the restructuring of ST's manufacturing activity but also we want to move on with the optimization of the product portfolio of the company."