Freescale Semiconductor is one of the world's largest semiconductor companies. Its predecessor was Motorola's semiconductor division, which was spun off from Motorola in 2004. The company has been engaged in the semiconductor business since 1953 and is a pioneer in the global semiconductor industry and technology. Freescale has designed and manufactured numerous embedded semiconductor products for automotive electronics, consumer electronics, industrial control, network, and wireless markets, and has long been a global market leader in the field of microcontrollers. For instance, the MC68HC05, launched in 1983, became one of the most successful 8-bit microcontrollers, with Intel's 8051 also being widely adopted. In December 2015, NXP and Freescale announced the completion of their merger.