Renesas to buy Nokia's wireless modem business

LONDON — Mobile phone company Nokia Oy is forming an alliance with Japanese chip company Renesas Electronics Corp. to develop modem technologies for fourth generation mobile cellular communications HSPA+/LTE. As part of the alliance Renesas (Tokyo, Japan) will buy Nokia's wireless modem business for about $200 million including approximately 1,100 Nokia R&D professionals, located in Finland, India, the UK and Denmark.
The transfer is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to happen during the fourth quarter of 2010.
Renesas will combine Nokia's modem assets with its own expertise in multimedia processing, power management high-power amplification and RF transceivers to develop a mobile "platform."
The wireless modem business to be transferred to Renesas includes Nokia's wireless modem technologies for LTE, HSPA and GSM standards, which have been used in billions of handsets. Nokia is also transferring certain patents related to those technologies.
"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. Our collaboration with Nokia will enable consumers to enjoy true mobile cloud computing experiences through our advanced high-speed mobile devices," said Yasushi Akao, President of Renesas Electronics Corp., in a statement, issued by Nokia.
"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. 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," said Kai Oistamo, executive vice president of Nokia, in the same statement.
Renesas 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," said Oistamo.

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