Samsung Electronics announced that it has begun buying chipsets for its mobile phones from German chipmaker Infineon, weaning its dependence on U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm. Previously, Samsung only used chips from Qualcomm.
The company said the move was part of a plan to “raise cost competitiveness.” Samsung also reportedly said that Infineon’s chipsets cost 20% less than Qualcomm’s and do not lag in quality.
In more handset news, the company announced a slim HSDPA touchscreen, the Tocco, or Touch in Italian. The Tocco is about the size of a credit card and comes with a 5-megapixel camera, MP3 player, 240 MB of internal memory, an expandable memory card slot capable of handling up to 8 GB, FM radio and 2.8-inch TFT LCD touch display with the TouchWiz user interface.
The Tocco, also known as the F480, is scheduled to launch in Europe in June followed by other GSM regions.