TI Wireless Technology Powers 28 of 31 Symbian OS-based
2.5G and 3G Handsets
Symbian Ltd and Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) today announced that TI wireless technology, including OMAP processors, powers 28 of 31 Symbian OS-based 2.5G and 3G handsets either in-market today or scheduled to ship imminently. TI technology is the clear market-leading silicon solution for Symbian OS-based phones, with more than 85% of the five million Symbian OS-based phones shipped in the first half of 2004 based on TI’s OMAP platform.
TI and Symbian continue to collaborate closely and invest in initiatives to support Symbian’s internal platform development, including Symbian’s hardware and software integration and verification processes. These initiatives support ongoing development activities being undertaken by Symbian OS licensees and the wider Symbian ecosystem. This extensive engineering cooperation between the companies helps ensure this hardware and software platform remains a market-leading choice for smartphone manufacturers, technology partners and application developers.
“TI’s technology has been a key driver in 2.5G and 3G handsets and has significantly contributed to the rapid emergence of the smartphone category. The close cooperative relationship between Symbian and TI has helped TI become one of the most successful semiconductor companies in the smartphone category,” said David Levin, CEO, Symbian Ltd. “Both Symbian and TI are investing to ensure that handset manufacturers are able to use TI technology to develop phones based on Symbian OS at lower development costs and with accelerated time to market. This will be increasingly important as Symbian OS is adopted as the preferred technology platform for mass market, mid-tier open phones.”
“The large number of Symbian OS licensees selecting TI silicon reflects the advanced technical capabilities of the OMAP platform for running 2.5G and 3G Symbian OS and advanced multimedia applications,” said Alain Mutricy, TI vice president and general manager, Cellular Systems. “Today’s announcement reflects a continued commitment by TI and Symbian to work closely together in wireless application development innovation.
TI was one of the first semiconductor companies to work with Symbian OS and is the leading supplier of application processors for Symbian OS-based smartphones.
The majority of smartphones shipping today are based on the Symbian platform, with all major mobile phone manufacturers licensing Symbian OS for use as a platform for the development of data-enabled mobile handsets.