Renesas buys Nokia’s wireless modem business
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Renesas Electronics and Nokia are forming a strategic business alliance to develop modem technologies for HSPA+/LTE communications.
As part of this alliance, the companies have entered into an agreement under which Renesas will acquire Nokia's wireless modem business for approximately $200million. The alliance will be enhanced by long term joint research cooperation on future radio technologies.
Amongst the assets to be transferred to Renesas are technologies addressing the LTE, HSPA and GSM standards. Nokia is also assigning certain patents related to the transferred technology to Renesas.
Renesas says the planned transfer will further strengthen its position as one of the leading chipset vendors in the 3G and LTE market. "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," said Yasushi Akao, pictured, president of Renesas Electronics.
"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," said Kai Oistamo, Nokia's executive vice president.
Renesas Electronics has licensed Nokia's modem since 2009 and the two companies have been working together to develop an HSPA+/LTE platform. "I believe that the integration of the Nokia wireless modem into Renesas' multimedia processing and rf capabilities places Renesas in a strong position in HSPA+/LTE chipsets," Oistamo concluded.
