Philips Semiconductors and Texas Instruments (TI) are considering raising prices for their GPRS (2.5G) handset chipsets by 10-15%, which may take place in the first quarter of next year at the earliest, according to sources.
Currently, GPRS chipsets that do not include the man-machine interface (MMI) are priced at about US$20 in the market, sources said.
Tight supply has been reported for handset-use baseband, power amplifier (PA) as well as RF ICs. PA and RF ICs have been in a more serious shortage, with their supply falling about 20% short of demand, according to sources at the international chip suppliers.
Demand for handsets has been stronger than expected. In addition, hot sales for home-use DVD devices and WLAN products have squeezed production capacity for handset chips, the sources said.
Article translated by Wen-Yu Lang and edited by Jack Lu
