NEC, Panasonic and TI Form Handset JV
NEC, NEC Electronics, Matsushita, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Texas Instruments just announced that the five companies have signed an agreement to establish a new joint venture company. The company will conduct global development, design, and technology licensing for a hardware and software communications platform to manage the core communications functions for 3G handsets. The new company, Adcore-Tech Co., Ltd (“Adcore-Tech”), is scheduled to be established in August, 2006 at the Yokosuka Research Park in Yokosuka, Japan, with approximately 180 employees.
(As we stated on Tuesday this week: “expect a formal announcement in the coming days.” — Eds.)
The five companies will jointly invest 12.0 billion yen in the new joint venture, with approximately 44 percent held jointly by NEC and NEC Electronics, approximately 44 percent held jointly by Matsushita and Panasonic Mobile, and approximately 12 percent held by Texas Instruments.
Through this joint venture, NEC and Panasonic Mobile, which have played crucial roles in leading the industry in developing and implementing 3G/3.5G (W-CDMA/HSDPA) technology handsets, will team with communications chip (chipset) manufacturers Matsushita, NEC Electronics and Texas Instruments. This aims at concentration of the technologies and development resources of all five companies, thereby facilitating speedy and efficient development of the increasingly sophisticated communications technology for mobile handsets at 3G/3.5G and beyond, and contributing to the advancement of the 3G/3.5G and beyond mobile handset industry at large.
The investment and operations of the new company will be established as follows:
1. In addition to investing in the new company, NEC, NEC Electronics, Matsushita, Panasonic Mobile, and Texas Instruments will license communications technology to the new company for 2.5G/3G/3.5G. Based on the technologies licensed, the new company will develop a competitive communications platform for 3G/3.5G and beyond.
2. The new company will license communications chip technology to NEC Electronics, Matsushita’s semiconductor company, and Texas Instruments. NEC and Panasonic Mobile will incorporate chips manufactured based on this technology into their mobile handsets.
3. NEC Electronics, Matsushita’s semiconductor company and Texas Instruments will also sell these chips to mobile handset manufacturers in Japan and worldwide.
4. The new company will license comprehensive solutions, including communications platform and necessary software, system evaluation, and customizing services to mobile handset manufacturers.
(*1) Communication Platform
All hardware and software covering (1) Basic circuit design for LSIs (2) Software to control basic circuit (3) Communication core to operate on (1) and (2), (4) Software operating as modem to coordinate (1) to (3).