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07 Feb 2006

Freescale Semiconductor Inc. has joined forces with Nokia and Symbian to offer later this year a 3G handset reference design. It will run Nokia’s S60 software on Symbian operating system, using Freescale’s single core modem.  Elektrobit Group Plc, a Finnish company specialized in wireless technology design and testing, is implementing this reference design.

Elektrobit is separately developing a 3G S60 “reference phone” running on Symbian OS, scheduled for introduction in the second quarter of 2007. The reference phone will be pre-tested for full type approval and interoperability testing.

Freescale’s MXC300-30 3G platform, featured with a shared memory approach and single core modem design, uses the combination of StarCore SC140 DSP running the entire communication engine stack, and ARM1136. The companies will be highlighting the 3G platform and reference design at the 3GSM World Congress which takes place from February 13 to 16 in Barcelona, Spain.

The new reference design, can ship to operators a 3G phone at a cost “less than $150.”

The new collaboration with Nokia and Symbian represents Freescale’s eagerness to accelerate the development of S60 phones addressing the mid-tier 3G market segment.

The market transition to mobile phones based on open operating systems – such as those by Symbian, Linux and Microsoft – rather than those on a proprietary real-time kernel is an irreversible trend.

He estimated that the market share for open OS phones will jump to 50 percent in 2007, from 13 percent in 2005. 60 percent of those open OS phones in 2005 were S60-based phones, he added.