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Motorola Develops New Chip for All Types of Wireless Phones
Schaumburg, Illinois, Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Motorola Inc., the world's No. 2 cellular-phone maker, said it developed a chip that will enable new mobile phones to offer fast data services and work on any kind of wireless network.
The chip will be shipped in new Motorola cell phones by the end of next year, said Paul McAlinden, a manager in the company's Wireless Communication Division. Motorola also will sell the new chip to competitors, such as Nokia Oyj and Ericsson AB, who will be able to use it to make phones that can run on any of the world's disparate cell-phone technologies.
The chip's immediate benefits will be faster wireless data speeds and increased productivity for chip engineers, who previously had to work separately on individual chips for each technology. Motorola is betting that the chip could someday bridge the gap between the world's competing wireless standards, which make it difficult to place calls worldwide with one phone.
U.S. wireless carriers now use three technologies: time- division multiple access or TDMA, code-division multiple access or CDMA, and global system for mobile communications or GSM. European and Asian carriers primarily use GSM, though they may use different frequencies than U.S. carriers.
The new chip is the first that can power TDMA, CDMA, GSM or integrated digital enhanced network, or iDEN, phones, McAlinden said. Each chip is expected to cost cell-phone makers $5 to $30, and the chips could be used in as many as 600 million wireless phones by 2003, he said.
The new chip will let phone makers create standard manufacturing processes and scale production for different standards and areas of the world, Motorola said.
Shares of Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola rose 3 5/8 to 97 5/16 on Friday.
Oct/31/1999 20:38
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