The Cell Phone Junkie

NTT DoCoMo Tuesday announced a joint venture with five partners to develop and sell chips for mobile devices.  In conjunction with Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic, and Samsung, the JV will focus on LTE technologies, and reduce their dependence on Qualcomm. Operations are expected to start at the end of March 2012.  As part of the new group, DoCoMo is establishing a subsidiary called Communication Platform Planning Co. that will be their portion of the partnership.

Press Release:

TOKYO, JAPAN, December 27, 2011 — NTT DOCOMO, INC. announced today that it has reached a basic agreement with five companies – Fujitsu Ltd., Fujitsu Semiconductor Ltd., NEC Corporation, Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. – to establish a fabless joint venture company by the end of March 2012 to develop and sell semiconductor products for mobile devices.

The joint venture company, leveraging the six investing companies’ strong backgrounds in cellular communication technology and vast experience in application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) design and foundry manufacturing, will develop feature-rich, small-size, low-power-consumption semiconductor products equipped with modem functionality. The joint venture company will focus on developing products for LTE and LTE-Advanced mobile communication standards. The products will be sold in markets globally.

The envisioned joint venture company will be formed once all parties agree on the details, which are now being worked out through consultation. Following the basic agreement announced today, and as part of preparing to form the joint venture company, DOCOMO plans to invest 450 million Japanese yen, or about 5.8 million USD*, to establish a wholly owned subsidiary, called Communication Platform Planning Co., Ltd. and headed by CEO Mitsunobu Komori, concurrently an executive vice president and Chief Technical Officer of DOCOMO, by the middle of January.

Source: Engadget