Infineon ships more than 100 million chips for ultra-low-cost handsets

Infineon Technologies has sold more than 100 million chips for the so called ultra-low-cost handset segment. The X-GOLD101 (E-GOLDvoice) mobile communications chip is the second generation of Infineon's integrated baseband chips for GSM/GPRS. It enables handset makers to lower system costs by more than 30%, according to the company.

The X-GOLD101 chip combines a variety of basic mobile communications components, including a baseband processor, transceiver, power management and memory. It packs a phone onto a single chip with an area the size of a finger nail, said Hermann Eul, member of the board and responsible for technology, sales and marketing at Infineon Technologies.

Infineon also unveiled its third-generation ultra-low-cost (ULC) mobile communications chip, the new X-GOLD 110. Manufactured at 65nm, the chip lowers system costs (bill-of-material) for handset manufacturers by 20% compared to its predecessor, according to Infineon. The X-GOLD110 is a ULC chip that includes an FM radio receiver in addition to telephony functionalities.