Japan and China sign mobile co-operation deal
Ministries of the Chinese and Japanese governments have signed a memorandum of understanding that will see the two countries collaborate on the development and standardization of advanced mobile communications.
The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) and Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) will co-operate on what they call fourth-generation, or "beyond the third generation" (B3G) technologies.
"B3G systems are expected to play an especially significant role as a global broadband system, to be realized by around 2010," said the MIC and MST in a joint statement.
"In order to realize B3G at the earliest possible stage and promote its development, international harmonization and co-operation are indispensable."
That co-operation will involve high-level meetings at least once per year to establish the focus of joint research and development work and approaches to standardization. This will include joint technological symposia.
Those symposia will involve experts from academia, government and industry, and could also involve participants from Korea.
According to China's MST, there are now over 360 million cell-phone subscribers in the country, indicating an astonishing rate of growth over the past few years.
In terms of the current breakdown of semiconductors found in Chinese handsets, analyst firm Semiconductor Insights says that GaAs chip manufacturers Skyworks Solutions and RF Micro Devices each have a 21% share of the cell-phone power amplifier (PA) market.
Somewhat surprisingly, Philips has a very strong foothold in this sector "“ despite only accounting for 4% of the global PA market. According to Semiconductor Insights' figures, Philips fills 48% of the available cell-phone PA slots in the People's Republic.
"There are three key differences found between the Chinese handsets and those of North America, Europe and Japan," wrote Gregory Quirk, a systems analyst for Semiconductor Insights, in an article published at EE Times Online recently.
"The number of different component vendors used in Chinese handset designs is greater; larger vendors have fewer design wins; and no single company seems to have secured the supply chain, leaving the market place open to all."
