Requirements and strategies for semiconductor technologies for mobile communication terminals

This article will first discuss the current state and trends of the Japanese mobile communications market. In particular, the diffusion status of "i-mode", which is an Internet-access service started in the second generation system, will be focused on, as well as on the development of the number of subscribers and the "i-mode" upgrading strategy with respect to the current status and future prospects of the services supporting IMT-2000 (W-CDMA), which were launched in September 2001. These types of non-voice services are proving to be extremely effective in enlarging the mobile communications market and increasing communication traffic. Requirements for throughput speed of the CPUs and memory capacity of the devices that have been used for mobile communication terminals, however, are constantly increasing as non-voice services become more and more popular. Issues to be solved, expected performance requirements and DoCoMo's efforts to reduce terminal costs, will be discussed.