British mobile solutions group Symbian and US-based chip maker Freescale said they would develop a blueprint of a smartphone for fast 3G wireless networks, a Reuters report said.
The report said Symbian, jointly owned by some of the world's biggest mobile phone makers, including Nokia, expected to come up with handsets based on its "reference design" in the first half of 2007.
The report said the two firms expected the design, based on Freescale's single 3G phone chip, to open the market for mobile phone producers that currently lacked the engineering strength to develop models on their own.
The report quoted Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford as saying that "we provide the core of the handset so that they can concentrate on design, features and the user interface. We anticipate a more level playing field."
The two firms also expected the joint effort to help small phone makers compete more effectively with big vendors, the report said.