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Joint News Release by Infineon Technologies and Huawei Technologies; Infineon and Huawei Join Forces to Offer Competitive WCDMA Mobile Phone Platform
September 16, 2003 05:30 AM US Eastern Timezone


MUNICH, Germany & BEIJING--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 16, 2003--Infineon Technologies (NYSE:IFX) (FWB:IFX), the world's sixth largest semiconductor manufacturer, and Huawei Technologies, a leading global supplier of network equipment, today announced at a signing ceremony in Beijing that they will join forces to offer a competitive WCDMA mobile phone platform. Through this partnership the two companies are creating a new business model to meet the specific customer needs in China. Both companies strongly believe this will support the large-scale introduction of WCDMA in China.

Infineon Technologies, a leading provider of 2G to 3G chipsets and complete solutions, will contribute the reference design and protocol stack software for the development of WCDMA mobile phone platform. Huawei will complement this co-operation with leading-edge technologies and strong WCDMA network expertise. Additionally, Huawei provides terminal testing and broad technical experience in IOT (Inter-Operability Testing) between mobile terminals and mobile systems. By joining forces for this end-to-end solution, both companies will facilitate the integration of WCDMA mobile phone platforms, through the development of application software, the integration of the protocol stack software, and high-performance WCDMA RTT algorithms.

Generally, WCDMA mobile phone manufacturers specialize in supporting multimedia communications and high data-rate for high-end users. The Infineon-Huawei partnership will bring about a competitive voice-centric WCDMA mobile phone platform for the mass market.

"The winning combination of Huawei's and Infineon's complementary know-how enables the two companies to offer highly competitive WCDMA handsets that satisfy the specific needs of China, the world's largest mobile phone market," said Dr. Ulrich Schumacher, President and CEO of Infineon Technologies.

Infineon has lately taken a series of measures including various investments in China, establishing joint ventures, and forming new partnerships. The co-operation with Huawei is part of Infineon's commitment to China.

According to Ms. Sun Yafang, Chairman of Huawei, "Huawei has invested heavily in WCDMA, the mainstream 3G standard. We have mastered the complete set of technologies from core system technology to chip design, and become one of the few in the world that can provide comprehensive commercial systems. The partnership with Infineon will enhance Huawei's capabilities in end-to-end WCDMA solutions, better serve the needs of operators and end users for low-cost WCDMA mobile phones (by offering voice and SMS services) and promote 3G development in China. We also believe that the platform cost could be narrowed to the level of GSM."

"In the area of mobile terminals, Huawei is committed to developing low-cost 3G handsets and bringing the benefits of 3G to the general population," she added. "Huawei will endeavour to provide end-to-end solutions and quality services to operators and end users by combining the unique features of different mobile phones with Huawei's competence in the wireless business."

About Huawei

Established in 1988, Huawei Technologies is a high-tech enterprise which specializes in research and development (R&D), production and marketing of communications equipment, providing customized network solutions for telecom carriers in optical, fixed, mobile and data communications networks. Huawei's customers include China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, China Netcom as well as Thai AIS, South Korea Telecom, SingTel, Hutchison Global Crossing, PCCW, Telemar (Brazil), etc. Further information is available at www.huawei.com

About Infineon

Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions for the automotive and industrial sectors, for applications in the wired communications markets, secure mobile solutions as well as memory products. With a global presence, Infineon operates in the US from San Jose, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo. In fiscal year 2002 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 5.21 billion with about 30,400 employees worldwide. Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX). Further information is available at http://www.infineon.com

This news release is available at http://www.infineon.com/news

and at http://www.huawei.com.

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