A group of UK semiconductor buffs are splitting ways with the China-UK joint venture they founded in 2018, to establish a UK-owned firm called RANsemi. The new entity will make and sell the chips designed by Picocom to markets outside of China and will also develop new products. Picocom will still exist as a Chinese entity solely. The plan has been some years in the making and aims to attract a customer base which had previously been wary of Picocom’s partial Chinese ownership. RANsemi will initially make and sell two system-on-chip products that it has licensed from Picocom. Both of these were originally largely designed in the UK, these are the PC802 for 5G Open RAN basebands and the PC805,…