Samsung Electronics and Infineon Technologies today announced a co-operation to provide a comprehensive smartphone system solution, based on Symbian OS, that will significantly reduce development time. This comes hot on the heals of Samsung's confirmation as a Symbian shareholder.

I'm not entirely sure what this means. It is another one of those potential reference design (although it looks more solid than most). Whats interesting is that this could provide a serious challenge to Series 60, especially in the Asian market (the probable growth region for mobile phone sales).

This deal also perfectly illustrates one of the concepts of Symbian; the so called Symbian ecosystem, this is the term used to refer to the inter linkages between firms and strategic partnerships. The heart of this is the Symbian Partnership program, but as this proves links can form around Symbian (I would speculate that Symbian had a hand in this deal).

This way of doing business is often seen avery European in direct contrast to more company isolated and competitive nature of American business. Some economists argue that this is the future of business dealings because it creates a better environment in which to do business, breaking down barriers between companies so that the best solution is used (and its the reason that some predict a resurgence in Europe's economic position); this is all of course relatively contensious, but it is helper to consider the philosophy when looking at the implications and importance of this kind of annoucnement. This intra-company partnership strong type deal is in sharp contrast to some of Symbian's competitors.

Actually Symbian as a company is a good example of this, an effective alliance of firms who might normally be considered competitors. In one sesne this is Symbian's greatness weakness - what happens when people don't agree? However in reality it is Symbian's greatest strength - both in terms of having a very strong base (all of the largest mobile phone manuacturers have some link to Symbian) and in terms of the benefits that inter-linkages create in technological development.

Press Release:
Samsung and Infineon demonstrate smartphone system solutions
Cannes, France – Feb. 17, 2003: Samsung Electronics and Infineon Technologies today announced a co-operation to provide a comprehensive smartphone system solution, based on Symbian OS, that will significantly reduce development time.

The current platform includes Samsung’s recently announced System-in Package (SiP) Application Processor, a complete Infineon GSM/GPRS Class 10 modem. This platform uses Symbian OS, TapRoot Systems’ telephony software and PacketVideo’s wireless MPEG-4 decoder and encoder solutions.

“This alliance supports today’s mobile business requirements by offering a smartphone design platform with increased multimedia features.” said Dr. Hyung Lae Roh, Executive Vice President, SoC R&D Center, Samsung Electronics. “Smartphone designers can create powerful, feature-rich mobile devices that utilize the latest browsers as well as drive a digital camera and media player.”

“Combining Infineon’s leading edge modem technology with Samsung’s wide portfolio of application processors, will make it much easier for customers to have success in the smartphone segment.” says Klaus Hau, vice president and general manager of Wide Area Wireless at Infineon Technologies. “Our common system offering enables our customers to significantly reduce design cycle time”

The centerpiece of the application environment is Samsung’s System-in-Package (SiP), integrating an ARM9-based application processor (Samsung’s S3C2410), 256Mb NAND Flash and 256Mb SDRAM. The SiP’s small package size (17x17mm and 1.4mm high) significantly reduces real estate and power.

Key elements of Infineon’s small form factor modem solution are the highly integrated baseband controller E-GOLD+ V2, the RF transceiver SMARTi DC, the power management IC E-Power as well as a GSM/GPRS protocol stack.

The smartphone design uses Symbian OS with telephony software provided by TapRoot Systems including the GSM/GPRS Telephony Module (TSY). The development platform also offers multimedia features such as camera for still image and video capture, MPEG-4 video-on-demand (VOD), MP3 player and a JPEG image viewer. These applications were optimized for the S3C2410 by PacketVideo and the multimedia features are fully 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) compliant.

“This solution will help significantly to reduce time to market and project risk for Symbian licensees, who already account for 80% of annual mobile sales", said David Wood, Executive Vice President, Partnering of Symbian.

The first public demonstration will take place at the 3GSM World Congress Conference, held in Cannes, France, Feb. 18-21 where prototype board-level smartphones will make voice and data calls between Samsung’s booth, Stand D57 Hall 2, and Infineon’s booth, Stand A19/A20, Hall1.


About Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, and digital convergence technology. Samsung Electronics employs approximately 64,000 people in 89 offices in 47 countries. Samsung Electronics is the world’s leading producer of advanced semiconductors, TFT-LCDs, CDMA mobile phones, monitors and VCRs. Samsung Electronics consists of four main business units: Device Solution Network, Digital Media Network, Telecommunication Network and Digital Appliance Network Businesses.

The Device Solution Network specializes in semiconductor and TFT LCD display products for industrial, mobile and advanced computing applications, offering a full line of key solutions of DRAMs, SRAMs, Display Driver ICs, Smart Card ICs, TFT LCD panels and Flash memories. The Device Solution Network operates 11 overseas sales subsidiaries and mass production facilities to maximize on hand customer support. For more information, visit our website at www.samsungsemi.com

Samsung Semiconductor Inc., a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., is located in San Jose, Calif. More information can be found at www.usa.samsungsemi.com

Samsung Semiconductor Europe, a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany and London, UK with sales offices all over Europe. More information can be found at www.samsungsemi.de

About Infineon

Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions for the automotive and industrial sectors, for applications in the wired communications markets, secure mobile solutions as well as memory products.
With a global presence, Infineon operates in the US from San Jose, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo. In the fiscal year 2002 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 5.21 billion with about 30,400 employees worldwide. Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX). Further information is available at www.infineon.com.

About Symbian

Symbian develops and licenses the global industry standard operating system for advanced mobile phones. The world’s leading handset manufacturers license Symbian OS, including Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. In total, Symbian OS licensees represent over 80% of worldwide mobile phone sales.

Symbian's mission is to create a global mass market for Symbian OS mobile phones by enabling its licensees to build winning products. Publicly announced Symbian OS phones include the FOMA F2051, Sony Ericsson P800 Smartphone, Nokia 9210 series, 7650, 3650 and N-Gage. As at January 2003, 9 Symbian licensees had 20 Symbian OS phones in development. For further information about Symbian, please see www.symbian.com