Japanese mobile operator NTT DOCOMO has today announced the upcoming formation of a fabless joint venture company that will focus on the development of "feature-rich, small-size, low-power-consumption semiconductor products equipped with modem functionality."

Allegedly targeting Qualcomm, this new joint venture, which will be established by the end of March 2012, is set to be backed by NTT DOCOMO (of course), Samsung Electronics, Panasonic Mobile Communications, NEC, Fujitsu and Fujitsu Semiconductor. This six-company JV will start off by making chips for the LTE and LTE-Advanced mobile communication standards. Said chips will be available worldwide so a variety of manufacturers can adopt them for future devices.

To get the ball rolling on the joint venture, DOCOMO wants to invest 450 million yen (~ US $5.8 million) into a new, wholly owned subsidiary, called Communication Platform Planning. This entity will be headed by Mitsunobu Komori who's the executive vice president and Chief Technical Officer of DOCOMO. The subsidiary will be established by the middle of January.