Broadcom said on Sunday that number-two cell phone maker Samsung was shipping next-generation handsets that use its chips to cellular operators. The 3G phones, which can surf the Web and download data from the Internet faster than previous generations of phones, are on their way to operators in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and elsewhere, Broadcom said.

Number-one cell phone maker Nokia has said it would buy phone chips from STMicroelectronics , Broadcom and Infineon , potentially decreasing the clout of market leaders Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, Nokia's long-time supplier.

The Broadcom chips that Samsung selected for its SGH-J750 and SGH-A401 3G phones include its BCM2133 EDGE baseband processor, the BCM2141 WCDMA co-processor, the BCM2045 Bluetooth transceiver and the BCM59001 power management unit.