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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: S100 who wrote (2623)	2/6/2001 3:04:49 PM
From: S100	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12231

Chip Makers Face 3G Wireless Challenges (02/06/01, 9:13 a.m. ET) By Mark LaPedus, Semiconductor Business News SAN FRANCISCO—Japan's NTT Mobile Communications Network Inc. is set to launch the world's first third-generation (3G) network this spring—a move that's expected to speed the growth of wireless Internet services. But the shift to faster wireless networks and services will present major new challenges to chip and system suppliers, warned an executive from NTT DoCoMo in a presentation before the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) Monday. "IC technologies play an important role in [3G]," noted Kei-ichi Enoki, managing director of NTT DoCoMo, Tokyo. "The power consumption [in 3G-enabled systems will need to be] approximately one-fourth that in PDC," said Enoki, referring to Japan's current second-generation digital-cellular network, called Personal Digital Communications. Enoki said NTT and other major carriers must also offer more value-added services and technologies such as Java, in order to attract a larger base of end users. In fact, NTT is deploying Java in its wireless Internet service, he added. NTT is scheduled to deploy its 3G-enabled network in Japan during May. The system will be based on an international standard, called IMT-2000. NTT's 3G-enabled network itself is based on a digital-cellular technology, called wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA). "IMT-2000 base-band signal processing is several tens-of-times faster than PDC, and reduced LSI power is essential," said Enoki in his paper presented at the opening of ISSCC in San Francisco. "IMT-2000 requires more than 10 times larger memory capacity for digital signal processing [as compared] to PDC," he said. 3G is expected to boost NTT's already successful wireless Internet service in Japan. Dubbed i-mode, NTT's wireless Internet service offers online news, banking, stock quotes, movie times, restaurant guides, and other information. "Wireless Internet access is no longer just a concept," Enok said in his opening keynote at the ISSCC event. "We are doing real business." Since its inception in Japan in early-1999, NTT's i-mode now claims it is signing up 100,000 new subscribers every month in Japan. In total, i-mode has about 18 million subscribers. At present, i-mode uses a packet-switch networking scheme based on Japan's proprietary, digital-cellular protocol, dubbed PDC. The PDC systems allows for wireless data at speeds of 9.6 kbit/s. End users are charged on a per-packet-basis. One packet of data is 128 bytes, for which NTT charges 0.3 yen. The i-mode also lets end users exchange e-mails with other cell phones or PCs. "Content is also essential," Enoki said. "News is only a part of the Internet. We also offer online transactions such as banking." techweb.com