Nokia phones to get cheaper

SAN FRANCISCO: Cell phone maker Nokia will soon start using Texas Instruments Inc. technology that puts most of the electronics in a handset onto a single chip, the chipmaker said.

Dallas-based Texas Instruments, the world's biggest maker of semiconductors for cell phones, said the chip will let Nokia make low-cost, entry-level, voice-only phones for fast-growing, emerging markets such as India and China.

The chip bundles together functions including memory, logic, power management and various radio and network processes. TI had said it would develop such a chip in 2002 and produced test versions of it in December.