Chipmakers Lock Arms to Create Cell Phone Standards

Nokia, Sony, Texas Instruments and four other global chipmakers reached an accord Friday wherein each will cooperate with an industry organization to create an industry standard for cell phone chips. The new specification to be focused is dubbed Universal Flash Storage. The target performance level is expected to be a significant advancement beyond that of the various flash cards popular today.

Seven major global chipmakers have reached an agreement to cooperate with an industry association to create an industry standard for chips used in cell phones and digital cameras by 2009.

This is a major step towards industry-wide efforts to harmonize various technology standards and reduce inconvenience for consumers.

Open Standards
In a joint statement released on Friday, the seven chipmakers -- Micron Technology (NYSE: MU) , Nokia (NYSE: NOK) , Samsung Electronics , Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERICY) , Spansion, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) -- said that they would support the creation of a far-ranging industry specification for removable memory cards and embedded memory solutions under the leadership of the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association (JEDEC), a leading open standards organization in the semiconductor industry.

The new specification to be focused is dubbed Universal Flash Storage (UFS), which is designed to meet the industry's need for a universal memory solution with higher memory capacities and performance.

Fast Downloads
The UFS will provide a "revolutionary leap" in the industry's efforts to develop next-generation semiconductor chips that support very low access times required for memories, enable high-speed access to large multimedia files, and reduce power-consumption in consumer electronic devices, they said in the statement.

The target performance level is expected to be a significant advancement beyond that of the various flash cards popular today.

With the new technology standard, users can access a 90-minute high-definition movie within a few seconds compared with three minutes at present.