« China mobile solidifies position as worlds largest cell phone company | Main | Africa's largest cell operator launches wireless broadband »
August 12, 2005
TI targetting cheap cellphones for emerging markets
Texas Instruments has introduced its single-chip technology for cell phone makers in emerging markets.
The product combines functionalities such as memory, logic, power management, radio and network processes on a single chip. Such integration of crucial electronics on a single chip will reduce the power requirements, the needed board area and silicon area of phones. All of that should help drive down costs of entry-level GSM phones with GPRS capability.
The chip was made available to Nokia at the beginning of the year and is now available to manufacturers in India and other emerging markets. India and China being some of the fastest growing markets may see $20 cell phones soon according to TI officials.
China Mobile is the largest cellphone operator in the world with 224 million users. India which has 58 million cellphone users is expected to add 100 million new subscribers within two years.
Interestingly the bulk of the designing, development and testing for the new chipset took place at Texas Instruments' Bangalore development center, which has 1,200 engineers.
Posted by admin at August 12, 2005 02:07 PM