TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Via Technologies Inc., one of Taiwan's largest chip design companies, said Tuesday (October 1, 2002) that it has licensed Bluetooth intellectual property from Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson.
The agreement gives Via access to Bluetooth radio and baseband cores, which it said it would apply to PC and mobile applications. The deal also includes the use of host and embedded software.
Ericsson developed Bluetooth technology in the mid-1990s, before introducing it as part of a high-powered consortium, but the technology is only winning acceptance slowly, despite a great deal of coverage in the media over several few years.
The short-range wireless technology has been hailed as the solution to the tangled mass of wires cluttering up space behind PCs. However, so far, the chips have scored more design wins in mobile phones and communications accessories, such as headsets.
