NTT, Renesas, others team up on universal phone platform

In a move that should eventually reduce handset manufacturing costs for member companies and result in more worldphones for consumers, a consortium composed of NTT DoCoMo, Renesas Technology Corp, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, and Sharp have come together to develop a single mobile phone platform that combines common core hardware and software. The platform is composed of a single-chip LSI for dual-mode HSDPA/W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE handsets (which combines a baseband processor with the SH-Mobile application processor) along with core software such as operating systems, middleware, and drivers. Phones using the new platform will first be available on DoCoMo's FOMA network, followed by a UMTS release on Renesas.