TOKYO-In its second such announcement in as many days, Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. announced it will invest $50.3 million in Texas Instruments Inc. over two years to jointly develop a single-chip LSI, making FOMA 3G handsets compatible with both W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS networks.
Currently, it is necessary to embed two chips to produce a W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS dual-mode handset, DoCoMo said. However, by combining DoCoMo’s W-CDMA technology with Texas Instruments’ LSI fabrication, multimedia application processor and GSM/GPRS technologies, a single chip will be developed that enables a lower cost 3G handset to run on both networks.
DoCoMo’s said the investment is a step toward bringing about the “widespread global use of 3G FOMA-compatible handsets” and will help upgrade basic FOMA handset functions, such as longer standby time.
DoCoMo announced a similar agreement Monday with Renesas Technology Corp. to develop single-chip dual-mode handsets through a $64.7 million, three-year Renesas Technology investment.
