NEC, Matsushita set 3G software standards

TOKYO: Japan's NEC Corp and Matsushita Communication Industrial Co Ltd. on

Thursday unveiled a joint software platform for third-generation mobile

handsets.

Osamu Waki, a director at Matsushita Communication, the maker of Panasonic

phones, said they had agreed to develop two core operating systems for mobile

phones that would separately handle radio communication functions and

application functions such as Internet browsing and video calling.

In order to promote their technology and ensure that 3G services grow

rapidly, the two mobile phone firms said they would license the software

platform to other manufacturers. "What's key about the evolution of mobile

phones is that the size of software has increased significantly," Waki told

reporters.

"The purpose of our cooperation is to create, expand and accelerate the

3G market," he said. A mobile handset product based on their 3G software

technology would appear in the Japanese market by the end of the year, said Ben

Nakamura, NEC's senior vice president for mobile terminals.

Rivals NEC and Matsushita, Japan's top two mobile phone makers, joined forces

last summer to build a common operating system for third-generation (3G) phones

for the global market.

NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's biggest mobile operator, launched the world's first

3G service with NEC and Panasonic's mobile phones last October. Matsushita

Communication's Waki said that they would have 100 engineers working by

September at a "3G Mobile Collaboration Office" in Yokohama.

NEC's Nakamura said that current mobile phones were based on a single CPU

(central processing unit) architecture that bundled all functions together. But

this was no longer appropriate for 3G phones, whose fast speeds make possible

more complex applications such as video conferencing and fast Internet content

downloads.

Instead, separate C-CPU (Communication-CPU) and A-CPU (Application-CPU)

software platforms would be developed so that improvements could be made in each

area independently.

The use of the A-CPU architecture would enable NEC, Matsushita and other

makers to design unique features into their handsets without having to adjust

their software to the C-CPU.