A joint venture formed last year by NEC, Panasonic, and TI has announced its first product, a hardware/software reference design for a “3.5G” W-CDMA baseband subsystem for mobile phones. Adcore-Tech says it has already started licensing its design to partner companies developing mobile handset communications chips.

Adcore-Tech was launched last July, with the goal of creating a “Communication Platforms” comprised of all hardware and software covering:

1. Basic circuit design for LSIs (large-scale integrations, i.e. integrated circuits)
2. Software to control basic circuit
3. Communication core to operate on (1) and (2)
4. Software operating as modem to coordinate (1) to (3)

Adcore-Tech said its W-CDMA design can support 3.5G operation using HSDPA and HSUPA cellular protocols, while minimizing interface for LTE (long-term evolution) applications.

W-CDMA was originally developed by NTT-DoCoMo, the largest telephone company in Japan. The protocol was subsequently adopted as the basis for UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system), a 3G technology expected to gradually replace GSM/GPRS. LTE, meanwhile, is a 3GPP project to improve UMTS.

Pricing was not disclosed.

 
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