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3G phones are getting simpler |
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Tuesday, 21 September 2004 |
21 September, 2004: The first generation of 3G phones suffered from high complexity and high costs – but the situation has improved markedly in the last twelve months according to teardown specialists Portelligent.
A study carried out by Portelligent reveals that manufacturers have substantially reduced the average complexity and manufacturing costs of 3G UMTS phones since the first generation of devices. Product teardown analyses on 11 UMTS phones introduced in Europe over the last 18 months show that products which have been brought to market since the beginning of 2004 have a 25% reduction in the average number of components over earlier devices. The average number of high-value integrated circuits in the 2004 products, which is a strong indication of overall manufacturing cost, has declined by almost 50%.
This is largely, says Portelligent, a result of handset manufacturers achieving more integrated designs and semiconductor vendors bringing more mature chipsets and technology platforms to the market. The first generation of UMTS phones also substantially exceeded, in terms of average IC count and total electronic component count, NTT DoCoMo’s Foma WCDMA phones and CDMA2000 terminals. This is no longer the case. The 2004 UMTS phones have lower average IC counts that the feature-rich Foma phones introduced in Japan earlier this year.
“In 2003, detailed product teardown analysis of the electronics BOM (bill-of-materials) and component technologies painted a bleak picture for UMTS,” notes Howard Curtis, vice-president of Portelligent. “Given the very high estimated cost-of-goods sold numbers we were finding in the first-generation products, we just didn’t see how the carriers were going to be successful in jump-starting the 3G market. The NEC e-606, for instance, which contained 108 ICs, was the most complex cell phone Portelligent has ever encountered. But the second-generation products demonstrate higher levels of system integration and design maturity. On balance, we have gone from downright pessimism concerning the business prospects of UMTS, to a guarded optimism.”
Ian Channing
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