Infineon Technologies, the world's sixth largest semiconductor maker, has joined with Huawei Technologies to develop a low-cost mobile phone platform for third generation (3G) mobile telecom systems.

"The biggest question is how we can stimulate the 3G market and our co-operation with Huawei aims to find a right approach for that," said Ulrich Schumacher, president and chief executive officer of Infineon.

Schumacher went on to explain that 3G has so far met difficulties because fact telecom operators and equipment makers focus too much on the high-end multimedia and data applications market, which also meant its volume was quite small, and the rollout of the systems could not bring good returns for operators and equipment vendors.

It is the two companies's goal to construct a mobile phone platform for the WCDMA system and make the prices of the phones affordable to ordinary users with the simple functions of voice communications and transmission of short messages.

Both companies will inject approximately US$20 million investment into the project, and the first operational phone based on their platform is expected to come out in the middle of 2004 ­Infineon will be responsible for developing reference designs and protocol software for the platform, while Huawei will provide expertise in the WCDMA network, terminal testing and interfacing between phones and systems.