Nokia sells wireless modem business for US$200m

6 Jul 2010

Mobile phone giant Nokia is selling its wireless modem business to Renesas Electronics for US$200m. The two companies will then work together as strategic partners on HSPA+ and LTE.

The planned transfer will include about 1,100 Nokia R&D professionals, the vast majority of whom are located in Finland, India, the UK and Denmark.

The alliance is planned to be enhanced by long-term joint research co-operation on future radio technologies.

Renesas Electronics plans to maximise the value of Nokia’s technology assets and engineering expertise in delivering advanced mobile platform solutions to the market by combining them with Renesas Electronics’ market-proven multimedia processing and RF technologies.

The wireless modem business to be transferred to Renesas Electronics includes Nokia’s wireless modem technologies for LTE, HSPA and GSM standards, which have been used for billions of handsets in the global market over the years. Further, Nokia transfers Renesas Electronics’ certain patents related to the transferred technology asset.

What transfer will mean

The planned transfer is expected to further strengthen Renesas Electronics’ position as one of the leading chipset vendors in the 3G and LTE market that is capable of providing one-stop mobile platform solutions, supporting an extensive range of modem protocols from GSM to LTE, and integrating advanced multimedia and computer processing capabilities.

“Wireless modems are an integral part of today’s chipset solutions, and we believe that Renesas Electronics, as one of the key chipset vendors in the market, is in an ideal position to further develop this offering,” Kai Oistamo, executive vice-president, Nokia, explained.

“The alliance enables us to continue to focus on our own core businesses, connecting people to what matters to them with our mobile products and solutions.”

Work on HSPA+/LTE platform

Renesas Electronics has licensed the Nokia modem since 2009 and the two companies have been working together to develop an industry-leading HSPA+/LTE platform. “I believe that the integration of the world-class Nokia wireless modem into Renesas Electronics’ strong multimedia processing and RF capabilities, places Renesas Electronics in a strong position in HSPA+/LTE chipsets,” says Oistamo.

“The agreement with Nokia demonstrates our long-standing commitment to shape the future of advanced mobile platforms and will serve as an important step for us to become a leading mobile platform vendor in the global market,” Yasushi Akao, president of Renesas Electronics Corporation, explained..

“Our collaboration with Nokia will enable consumers to enjoy true mobile cloud computing experiences through our advanced high-speed mobile devices,” said Akao.

“In line with our ongoing efforts to strengthen our business structure, the transferring wireless modem technology and the innovation power and expertise of Nokia’s employees will perfectly complement our core competences and serve as the key driving forces in growing our mobile business in the global market.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com