More chipset partners means greater uptake for UMTS operators

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Chip manufacturer Qualcomm has said that it has the largest number of manufacturers working with its WCDMA chipsets, compared to other chipset vendors. There are now 21 device and equipment vendors integrating Qualcomm’s WCMDA chipsets, including newcomers Vitelcom Mobile Technology, BenQ Corporation and Misubishi. Established players such as Samsung, LG and Toshiba have long been Qualcomm licencees.

Dr Sanjay Jha, president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, said the broadening customer base would aid adoption of UMTS, as more products hit the market. Proven interoperability would reassure the operators, as well.
“We expect global adoption of WCDMA to accelerate as our customer base brings new products to market,” Jha said. “Qualcomm’s extensive interoperability testing, in addition to the testing we’ve conducted with our WCDMA operator partners, provides our handset customers with the confidence that their development efforts can remain focused on quickly addressing new market opportunities.”
Qualcomm’s chipsets support its Launchpad and BREW environments for application development, as well as J2mE environment. The chipset vendor views WCMDA as an ideal entry point into a European market previously off-limits in the GSM world. It has made efforts to ramp up its BREW presence in Europe, signing up a series of application development partners.
l Qualcomm has also announced it expects to launch an HSDPA chip in 2005. Qualcomm says samples of its radioOne RFR6275 diversity receive chip, which it says will increase network capacity and deliver higher speed data rates for the next-generation UMTS technology High Speed Downlink Packet Access, is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2005. 
The RFR6275 chip extends the functionality of the RTR6275 transceiver device, also just announced, to include support for HSDPA receive diversity and Assisted-GPS (A-GPS). 
The RFR6275 supports HSDPA receive diversity, which uses an additional antenna and associated receive chain to provide improved signal reception, enabling higher data throughput and significant increases in network capacity, especially in dense urban environments. This allows the RFR6275 to enable up to 5 dB receive diversity gain. This device also integrates a GPS receiver, which supports Qualcomm’s gpsOne solution.