Spansion and Qualcomm working on cheaper CDMA phone semiconductors

Mobile processor maker Qualcomm has said that they are now going to work with memory chip maker Spansion. The two companies would work towards developing cheaper sets of semiconductors that would enable manufacturers to build low cost CDMA mobile phones.

The two companies believe that their initiative can lower the cost of mobile phones by around 25 percent in 2007.

Behrooz Abdi, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm’s CDMA Technologies said in a statement: “The cost savings in total are probably about 25 percent. That’s from all the things that we’ve done in the last year. We see CDMA handsets getting well below $30 in 2007.”

Qualcomm charges a royalty on every mobile device that uses CDMA technology. This increases the costs of the phones compared to devices running on GSM technology. Market analysts believe this is the reason why GSM continues to gain market share in the mobile industries around the world.

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