A handful of chipmaking heavyweights say they want to take smartphones and PDAs to a new dimension. Make that three dimensions.

Investing in 3-D capabilities for mobile devices seems like a no-brainer, Framingham, Mass.-based analyst firm IDC data says wireless gaming is on the rise and should generate $1 billion in wireless gaming revenue by 2006 for wireless carriers in the United States.

However, while the technology is available, analysts say manufacturers may have some challenges ahead in selling the all-in-one devices.

Looking to get its fair share of the wireless gaming application market, Samsung Electronics Thursday struck a licensing deal with chip design firm ARM to use PowerVR MBX 3-D technology as a graphics accelerator for its next generation of smart phones and PDAs.

The company said the advantage of using MBX cores is that it uses a screen-tiling technology to cut down on the memory bandwidth and save power for embedded system on a chip (SoC) devices.

Likewise, AMD and Fujitsu Monday released new Flash memory upgrade modules for the ARM926EJ-S core. Under their FASL partnership and Spansion brand, the 640-megabit technology is designed to help developers put 3-D graphics, Java applications and better MPEG technology on next-generation mobile phones and PDAs. The companies said the modules are part of U.K.-based ARM's RealView Versatile Platform Baseboard.

"We decided to include this component as an option for customers who are prototyping wireless designs for the mobile phone and PDA markets, in order to maximize the system-level value to designers of ARM core-based products," ARM Director of Marketing Alistair Greenhill said in a statement.

The ARM926EJ core allows for enhanced virtual memory support to run popular, complex Open operating systems, such as Symbian OS, Windows CE, Linux, Palm OS and QNX.