Exhibit 99.1

                            *************************

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                   Contact: Fran Harrison 
December 21, 1998                                      Fairchild Communications
                                                                 (207) 775-8576
                                         email: fran.harrison@fairchildsemi.com


             FAIRCHILD SEMICONDUCTOR ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT TO PURCHASE
                   SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS' POWER DEVICE DIVISION

       The acquisition will solidify Fairchild's role as a leading global
                      multi-market semiconductor supplier

South Portland, Maine, USA - Fairchild Semiconductor today announced it has
signed an agreement to acquire the Power Device Division of Samsung Electronics
Co., Ltd., for approximately $455 million. The purchase includes all the
worldwide business and assets of the Power Device Division, comprising high
volume wafer fabs in Bucheon, South Korea, design and development personnel in
Bucheon, and secured services for high volume assembly and test operations for
the Power Device Division, and worldwide sales and marketing personnel. The
purchase, part of Samsung's restructuring efforts, will allow Samsung
Electronics' semi-conductor unit to focus on its core competency in memory and
system LSI.

The Power Device business includes a broad portfolio of standard linear
products, power switch devices, IGBT, high voltage DMOS, and high voltage
bipolar products, small signal transistors, motor control ICs and power MOSFETs.

"With the addition of Samsung's Power Device business to Fairchild's already
extensive portfolio of analog and low power MOSFETs and small signal devices, we
now offer one of the broadest discrete and power IC portfolios in the industry,"
says Kirk Pond, chairman, president and CEO of Fairchild. "This acquisition
makes us one of the global leaders in the discrete market and significantly adds
to our broad line of industry standard analog products.

"I am especially excited by the many products this acquisition will allow us to
bring to the consumer appliance manufacturing markets, for use in monitors, TVs,
VCRs, DVDs, and audio systems, and to the industrial manufacturing markets such
as motor control and lighting," says Pond. "I am pleased that through this
acquisition, the Samsung Group will also become one of Fairchild's largest
customers. We look forward to continuing the Samsung tradition of superior
customer service to all the Power Device Division's valued customers. 

                                     -more-

                                      -4-



FAIRCHILD SEMICONDUCTOR ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT TO PURCHASE SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS'
POWER DEVICE DIVISION

         Page 2

"The purchase of Samsung's Power Device Division will strengthen Fairchild
Semiconductor's position as the only global company focused solely on the
design, manufacture and marketing of high performance multi-market
semiconductors. It affirms Fairchild's role as the consolidator of multi-market
semiconductor companies," says Pond. "We will continue our two-pronged growth
strategy: to grow externally through acquisition and internally through new
product development. Fairchild looks forward to further expanding the Samsung
product lines through aggressive investment in research and development."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., (http://www.samsungelectronics.com) a US $17
billion (1998) flagship company of Korean-based Samsung Group, is a world leader
in electronics, with operations in more than 50 countries and 75,000 employees
worldwide.

Fairchild Semiconductor (www.fairchildsemi.com) is the only global semiconductor
company solely focused on the design, manufacture and marketing of high
performance, multi-market components. Supplying standard logic, analog, mixed
signal, non-volatile memory and discrete power and signal technologies,
Fairchild's building block products are used in the telecommunications,
consumer, industrial, personal computer, digital video and automotive markets.
The company is headquartered in South Portland, Maine, USA and has 6,300
employees worldwide. Additional manufacturing facilities are located in
California, Utah, Malaysia and the Philippines, with regional sales offices
throughout the world.

                                      # # #






                                      -5-