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p>As published on The IET Network today, Nokia is preparing to sell part of its chipset design operation to STMicroelectronics as part of a larger plan to step back from silicon development.Nokia said it will continue to develop technology for wireless modems but will license that to chipset suppliers, who will implement the electronics for the phone maker. Chipset suppliers will be able to sell the parts they develop using the modem technology to Nokia’s competitors.

“This is a pragmatic move in the face of an increasingly complex technology environment,” said Niklas Savander, executive vice president, of Nokia’s technology platforms division. “Companies in this industry need to focus on areas where they can add value and partner with others where it makes sense. We believe that our renewed strategy will allow us to concentrate on developing core chipset technologies, while increasing our R&D efficiencies and improving our agility in a fast-moving marketplace.”

Nokia said it is now working with four chipset suppliers. Texas Instruments will continue to be a supplier across all protocols. Broadcom has been chosen as a supplier in EDGE, Infineon Technologies as a supplier in GSM and ST as a supplier in 3G.

Nokia has awarded ST a contract to design a chipset for High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) in an arrangement that will see about 200 designers based in Finland and the UK move from Nokia to ST. The companies are still negotiating over the staff transfer, which is one of the conditions for the HSPA contract.

Nokia said it chose Broadcom for EDGE based on its most recent single-chip baseband design.

“Nokia has been following the development of Broadcom’s Venus single chip EDGE processor and we were impressed with the progress made by the Broadcom team,” said Peter Ropke, senior vice president of Nokia’s mass-market mobile-phones operation.