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

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

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

cellular phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

product can be built. The main office was in

Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. 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, cop ...

. 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 Ericsson Mobile Communications AB was a subsidiary of Ericsson, entirely focused on development of mobile phones (handsets). The major offices were located in Lund, Kumla, Raleigh, North Carolina and Lynchburg, Virginia. History Under the command ...

became unprofitable, and was split in two parts: one part was merged with the mobile division of

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

and formed

Sony Ericsson Sony Mobile Communications Inc. ( ja, ソニーモバイルコミュニケーションズ株式会社) was a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1, 2001, as a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation and Ericsson. I ...

, 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 Flex Ltd. (previously known as Flextronics International Ltd. or Flextronics) is an American Singaporean-domiciled multinational diversified manufacturing company. It is the third largest global electronics manufacturing services (EMS), origi ...

HTC HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG Corporation, the fourth largest '' chaebol'' in South Korea, and often considered a ...

NEC is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It prov ...

, Sagem,

Sharp Sharp or SHARP may refer to: Acronyms * SHARP (helmet ratings) (Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme), a British motorcycle helmet safety rating scheme * Self Help Addiction Recovery Program, a charitable organisation founded in 19 ...

, 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 third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...

. At the end of 2004

Ericsson Technology Licensing (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

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 N.V. commonly referred as ST or STMicro is a Dutch multinational corporation and technology company of French-Italian origin headquartered in Plan-les-Ouates near Geneva, Switzerland and listed on the French stock market. ST ...

, ''ST-NXP Wireless'', to create a 50/50 joint venture owned by Ericsson and STMicroelectronics called

ST-Ericsson ST-Ericsson was a multinational manufacturer of wireless products and semiconductors, supplying to mobile device manufacturers. ST-Ericsson was a 50/50 joint venture of Ericsson and STMicroelectronics established on 3 February 2009 and dissolved 2 ...

.ST-Ericsson born as wireless-semiconductor industry leader
/ref> This joint venture collapsed in 2013 and remaining activities can be found in

Ericsson Modems (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

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 Sony Mobile Communications Inc. ( ja, ソニーモバイルコミュニケーションズ株式会社) was a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1, 2001, as a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation and Ericsson. I ...

, Amoi, Sagem,

, LG,

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

, 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 telecommunicat ...

EDGE Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...

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

* '
EMP acquired by STMicroelectronics to form a new company ST-Ericsson
''
The EMP story by Michael Kornby

EMP

Companies disestablished in 2009

Mobile Platforms A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablet computer, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal computing, personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobi ...