TD-SCDMA Chipsets and Handsets
>> TD-SCDMA Graduates to 3G Speeds
Mike Clendenin
Cai Yan (Shanghai
EE Times (Taipei, Taiwan)
11/21/2006
After stalling out at 2.5G speeds for some time, China's third-generation mobile phone technology recently graduated to 3G, with handsets ratcheting up data rates to 384Kbps in real-world conditions.
At the same time, it is looking likely that the Chinese government will choose the country's largest carrier, rather than a second-tier one, to launch the technology. That is welcome news to the small group of chip companies that have bet their future on TD-SCDMA.
"The logic is that China Mobile is the strongest carrier and so if anybody can make TD-SCDMA successful, then they are the most likely to pull it off," said Ted Dean, a principal analyst at BDA China, a Beijing telecom consultancy.
Analog Devices Inc said Tuesday that the trial networks were now able to hit speeds up to 384Kbps. A year ago, only 64Kbps links were possible; by last summer, up to 128Kbps was stable but not up to 384Kbps. Data rates hitting a stride on par with 3G specs is a big boost for the technology.
"It is a little early to say that in every nook and cranny in every city that we can guarantee 384Kbps, but I can say with certainty that this is not just ideal conditions in a laboratory environment. This is real world stuff on a live network," said Doug Grant, director of business development for RF and wireless systems at Analog Devices, which has been a key chipset provider in the trials.
Although the latest milestone is good news for TD-SCDMA backers, the technology still lags the more mature wideband-CDMA and CDMA2000 1X, which will also be licensed in China. Both of these technologies have been upgraded since their release so that they can hit downlink data speeds meeting or exceeding 2Mbps. TD-SCDMA chip designers are working on similar upgrades, which are expected late next year.
China has more than 400 million mobile users, with millions more signing up every month. Spending on its 3G market will easily run into the tens of billions over the next few years as networks are fully built out. But China has held back on issuing licenses because of the immaturity of its local standard, and that has confounded chip and gear makers waiting with baited breath for the spending spree to begin.
In a related development, TD-SCDMA will make its first overseas debut in South Korea early next year. According to the TD-SCDMA Alliance, SK Telecom will set up a trial network to test the technology and to develop value-added services. It will set up a similar test network in China and said it will also begin to explore 4G services in the country.
The deal is a good one for SK Telecom, since it allows them to operate in and possibly profit from the Chinese market, said Frances Guan, an analyst from In-Stat. SK Telecom operates both W-CDMA and CDMA2000 networks in South Korea. There was no indication that the TD-SCDMA network would be for domestic introduction. ###
>> China-made TD-SCDMA Chips to Embrace HSDPA
sinocast
December 13, 2006
Besides the radio frequency (RF) chip of Comlent, the 90nm technics-made TD-SCDMA baseband chips of Spreadtrum Communications, COMMIT Incorporated and T3G will also begin to support HSDPA in the year ahead.
The four producers have all showed their products at the recent ITU Telecom World 2006, including the double-mode baseband chip of Spreadtrum, SC8800 that adopts the 0.18-micron technics and sustains kinds of 3G businesses like MP3/AAC, MPEG-4, DV, TV Out, and so on; the media-functioned chip of T3G; and the more reasonable-priced products of COMMIT, Datang and ADI.
China‘s TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance has recently accepted the Shanghai-based RDA Microelectronics, who will engage in developing RF chips as Comlent does. Six other members of TD alliance: Spreadtrum, COMMIT, T3G, Datang, CYIT and Huali will mainly develop baseband chips.
The cooperation between baseband chip and RF chip, two core techniques used in the wireless communication terminals, will help form a completed 3G industrial chain in China. ###
From July ...
>> Several Models of TD-SCDMA Handsets Passed FTA
China Electronics News
July 11, 2006
tdscdma-alliance.org
Many a model of TD-SCDMA handsets are approaching commercial readiness, Mr. Yu Shengduo, Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Department of MII declared at the "TD- SCDMA Terminal and Application Seminar" held in Hangzhou on July 7, China Electronics News reports.
Several Models of TD-SCDMA Handset Admitted into Terminal Field Tests
Mr. Wu Guohua, SVP of Holley Telecommunications Group told China Electronics News that the company''s HLT9230 TD-SCDMA handset has passed TD-SCDMA field tests and Full Type Approval (FTA) tests required for the admission into the TD-SCDMA terminal field tests, and thus are ready to be issued by Chinese operators to general end users.
Holley will launch the mid-range HLT9250 equipped with 1.3M camera and a high-end HLT9240 that supports video streaming.
It is reported that Datang Mobile and ZTE also obtained the network admission approval for their handsets, while Bird and LG said they would passed the admission tests soon. Mr. Qian Guoliang, the vice president of LG R&D Center, commented, "The progress on their TD-SCDMA handset has exceeded their expectation."
The China Electronics News learned from a TD-SCDMA company that overall terminal TD-SCDMA tests have not been carried out as fast as they previously thought, even though new handset launches are heard rather frequently recently. The reason for the slowdown is mainly due to the quite a lot of rigorous performance tests on top of the scheduled IOT tests, among which are about 80 RF test cases.
Most of the participating companies believe the stringent tests are one necessary step before the TD-SCDMA handsets reach real commercialization, and expect decreasing number of test items in the future with the availability of more mature terminals.
While most of the TD-SCDMA handsets already admitted into the field tests are low-end, according to the handset makers'' roadmaps, handsets targeting the middle and high end segments will also enter the tests soon.
Mr. Zhang Qin, Vice president of TLC Industry Research Institute, said,"3 models of our TD-SCDMA handsets are to be tested and we hope to launch multimedia enabled handset soon after the basic voice phone last year."
According to Bird, they have 2 models of TD-SCDMA handsets, T08 and T09. The T08 is a basic handset and T09 is TD-SCDMA/GSM dual mode with functionalities like WAP, MMS, MP3 and MP4.
Datang Mobile said that besides their TD-SCDMA single and dual mode handsets, their triple mode phones will be announced soon.
Anticipating the initial patchy TD-SCDMA network coverage, all the TD-SCDMA handset makers have given top priority to the R&D of dual mode handsets.
Mr. Li Zheming, manager of ADI Asia Wireless said that they have launched TD-SCDMA dual mode phones with downlink data speeds of 384Kbps with their partner Datang Mobile and their chipset solution have been used by ZTE, Holley and Datang Mobile.
Cost Reduction Poses the Next Big Challenge
The market positioning of TD-SCDMA handsets have invited many heated debates among industry players and most believe initial market penetration will have to be realized by reliable, cost-compelling low-end handsets. With the stabilizing of the performance of first TD-SCDMA handsets, cost reduction have been the a key issue for the success of the TD-SCDMA handset.
Mr. Yang Wandong, Marketing Director of COMMIT, commented that, "Currently 2 big challenges face the TD-SCDMA handset. First, the handset needs to be structurally optimized to have few component counts thus to reduce its costs, then killer applications supported by the whole industry chain should be pinpointed."
Mr. Lu Jing, software manager of T3G, said that the company is striving to reduce the cost of TD-SCDMA handset from the chipset level. T3G''s next generation terminal chipset will be higher integrated with 5 chips while is 3rd generation chipset will be further integrated to have only 3 chips.
ADI has launched single mode TD-SCDMA chipset with 2 Base band chips and 2 RF chips, and their TD-SCDMA/GSM/GPRS dual mode high end chipset solution will also have 4 chips with greatly reduced cost and power consumption.
Some TD-SCDMA handset makers at the Seminar indicated that they can soon produce low-end TD-SCDMA phones priced below RMB 1,000 Yuan (US$ 120) and expected faster cost erosion compared to WCDMA handsets for 2 reasons: firstly, cheaper TD-SCDMA IPR costs, and secondly, a more intensive competition with the entrance of more players will certainly drive down the cost.
Currently, TD-SCDMA players in aggregate have a production capability of 2 million units, among whom Bird alone can already turn out 500,000 units. The bottleneck facing the industry has shifted to terminal test and measurement instruments link.
The TD-SCDMA Forum, the organizer of the Seminar, said that new to the TD-SCDMA terminal camp, companies such as Nokia, UTStarcom and Huawei also attended the Seminar, pushing a greater than expected attendance. ###
- Eric - |
