TOKYO-NEC Electronic Corp. wants to make chips off its old block.
The semiconductor unit of NEC Corp. said it will work together with its parent company to develop dual-mode chipsets that will combine W-CDMA with GSM/GPRS and EDGE technologies.
The project, which is estimated to cost up to $96 million, will make chips available in mobile phones between October 2006 and March 2007, according to Hirokazu Hashimoto, who serves as executive vice president of NEC Electronics.
An estimated 70 percent of the baseband chips will be supplied to NEC, while the rest will be sold outside the NEC line, according to Hashimoto.
