Ericsson Mobile Platforms AB (EMP) was the name of a company within the

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

group that supplied ''mobile platforms'', i.e. the technological basis on which a

cellular phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radi ...

product can be built. The main office was in

Lund Lund (, ;"Lund"
(US) and ) is a city in the provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, southern Swed ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. EMP was one of the leading suppliers of 3G technology to various brands of phones. EMP did not manufacture chips themselves, but partnered with manufacturers that made them based on their reference design and

Intellectual Property Rights Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

. These chips were then only sold to EMP customers. According to the company, EMP held the world’s largest 2G, 2.5G and 3G IPR portfolio, with more than 20,000 granted patents worldwide.

History

Due to the European telecom crisis in the beginning of the 2000s, Ericsson Mobile Communications became unprofitable, and was split in two parts: one part was merged with the mobile division of

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

and formed

Sony Ericsson Sony Mobile Communications Inc., originally Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, was a Multinational corporation, multinational consumer electronics and telecommunications company, best known for its Mobile phones, mobile phone products. The ...

, aimed at developing mobile terminals for the consumer market. At the same time, the other part of Ericsson Mobile Communications formed Ericsson Mobile Platforms. Some of their customers were Flextronics, HTC,

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG, LG Corporation, the fourth ...

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Inte ...

, Sagem, Sharp, Amoi and of course Sony Ericsson. The main focus of the company was around the development of a mobile platform for the third generation of mobile telephony,

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technolog ...

. At the end of 2004 Ericsson Technology Licensing was de-established, and select parts of that company was folded into Ericsson Mobile Platforms. October 3, 2008 the company showcased a handheld prototype for LTE (fourth generation mobile telephony). At this time, the company stated that they estimated to have the technology available for the market around the year 2011. The company existed for 8 years, but February 12, 2009 Ericsson announced that ''Ericsson Mobile Platforms'' would be merged with the mobile platform company of

STMicroelectronics STMicroelectronics Naamloze vennootschap, NV (commonly referred to as ST or STMicro) is a European multinational corporation, multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the largest of such companies in Europe. ...

, ''ST-NXP Wireless'', to create a 50/50 joint venture owned by Ericsson and STMicroelectronics called ST-Ericsson.ST-Ericsson born as wireless-semiconductor industry leader
/ref> This joint venture collapsed in 2013 and remaining activities can be found in Ericsson Modems and

. Ericsson Mobile Platform disappeared as a legal entity early 2009.

Platforms

The company took over the internal platforms that had been developed in Ericsson Mobile Communications under names such as ''Sandra'', ''Jane'' etc., and developed a series of platforms tied to certain specific radio standards: Open Platform API or "OPA" is the name given to the platform used across Sony Ericsson phones in Europe.

The third generation (3G)

In 2001, Ericsson Mobile Platforms became one of the first companies to license 3G technology platforms to mobile phone manufacturers. EMP was the first platform provider to have commercially launched handsets containing their WCDMA, EDGE and GPRS technologies. By 2006, manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, Amoi, Sagem, Sharp, LG,

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

, and

, had signed licence agreements with EMP. For 2006 Ericsson Mobile Platforms started deliveries of the U350 and U360 platforms, which was the smallest

HSDPA High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the performance of existing 3G mobile telecommunic ...

/ EDGE platforms yet. U350 is a quad-band EDGE and single-band HSDPA platform, whereas the U360 adds triple-band HSDPA capabilities.

References

{{Reflist

Sources

Ericsson, TI to Develop 3G Solutions for Handset Manufacturers

Ericsson Upgrades Its Mobile Platforms

External links