Broadcom today announced that it is “exploring strategic alternatives for its cellular baseband business, including a potential sale or wind-down.” Exiting the market will save the company $ 700 million a year in research and development, sales, administrative expenses, and other costs, Broadcom said.

Broadcom said it will use $ 50 million of the annual savings for “projects in the Broadband, Infrastructure, and Connectivity businesses. This incremental spending is currently expected to strengthen and accelerate the company’s plans in the area of small cells, embedded processing and low-power connectivity.”

Baseband processors provide cellular connectivity for mobile phones and other devices. Broadcom has been less successful with basebands than with its Wi-Fi technology. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S5 uses a Broadcom Wi-Fi chip but relies on a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor for LTE baseband support.