National Semiconductor Earns IEEE Educational Activities Board Award for Depth and Breadth of Professional Development Programs for Engineers

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- National Semiconductor Corporation has won the prestigious IEEE Employer Professional Development Award from the IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB), which annually recognizes superior achievements in training-and-education programs for professional engineers.

The EAB praised National for "major contributions to engineering employee professional development, continuing education and innovative collaborative tools that nurture a performance-driven culture and provide National Semiconductor with a competitive advantage."

National established its professional development program for engineers in 2003. It created an Engineering Council to foster engineering excellence as well as ensure innovation and quality valued by National's customers. Consisting of leading engineering managers from worldwide regions, the Engineering Council meets quarterly to set development objectives, provide resources for curriculum development as well as monitor progress and results.

National's comprehensive program provides professional development, functional training, best-practices sharing, mentoring, cross training and e-learning among the company's 2,800 engineers. Programs are delivered to engineers from design centers, six factory sites and four sales regions, and course attendance is orchestrated to provide collaborative skills and opportunities to network across National's multicultural, global engineering community.

Since the program's inception, National has realized an attractive return on its investment of over $3.3 million on curriculum and training. The company has achieved productivity enhancement through skill development, better training, improved retention and hiring as well as shorter design cycles as the company's engineers design high-performance analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits and processes.

"We are thrilled to be recognized by the IEEE for our development program for engineers," said Ed Sweeney, senior vice president of Worldwide Human Resources. "Our effort is effective because it provides learning beyond what is available at universities. It accelerates engineers' learning curve by conveying the combined knowledge of National's most experienced engineers as they share best practices and mentor each other as they create industry-leading analog circuits and processes."

"National Semiconductor is widely known in the electrical and computer engineering community as a leader in bringing advanced technologies to education and an innovator in training and education," said Moshe Kam, IEEE's vice president of educational activities and chair of the IEEE Educational Activities Board. "National leads its peers in encouraging and supporting mentoring programs, both inside and outside the company and has exhibited strong, consistent, and long-term support of professional and intellectual development of its employees, community volunteerism and leadership in professional associations including the IEEE."

The IEEE will officially present National with the EAB Award on November 11, 2005. Detlev Kunz, National's senior vice president and general manager of Power Management Group, will accept the award during the IEEE Board of Directors meeting in Orlando, Fla.

About National Semiconductor

National Semiconductor, the industry's premier analog company, creates high-value analog devices and subsystems. National's leading-edge products include power management circuits, display drivers, audio and operational amplifiers, communication interface products and data conversion solutions. National's key analog markets include wireless handsets, displays and a variety of broad electronics markets, including medical, automotive, industrial, and test and measurement applications. Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, National reported sales of $1.91 billion for fiscal 2005, which ended May 29, 2005. Additional company and product information is available at http://www.national.com/.

About IEEE

The IEEE is the world's largest professional association dedicated to the advancement of technology. Through its 365,000 members in 150 countries, the society is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics. The IEEE publishes 30 percent of the world's literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields, and has developed more than 900 active industry standards. The organization also sponsors or cosponsors more than 300 international technical conferences each year. Additional information is available at http://www.ieee.org/.

About the IEEE EAB Awards

IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) Awards recognize and honor individuals and companies for major contributions to education in the areas of accreditation, continuing education, educational innovation, pre-college education, meritorious service to the IEEE EAB, employee professional development and related achievements that advance the practice of engineering and of engineering education that are germane to the mission of the EAB.

CONTACT: LuAnn Jenkins of National Semiconductor Corporation, +1-408-721-2440, or luann.jenkins@nsc.com.