Phone chip under joint development

NTT Docomo, Renesas, Fujitsu and Sharp plan to jointly develop the SH-Mobile G4 single-chip LSI device, and a platform incorporating it, to support the HSUPA/HSDPA/W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE (2G) mobile telephony standards.

Development of the new platform is targeted for completion by January–March 2010.

The G4 will be fabricated with 45 nm process to enable highly integrated functions and extra-fast processing. It will provide enhanced functionality and improved performance for applications handling HD video and 3D graphics.

In addition to HSDPA cat 8 for extra-fast downlink speeds (max. 7.2 Mbps), the SH-Mobile will support HSUPA to boost uplink speeds to a maximum of 5.7 Mbps, almost 15 times faster than the conventional 384 Kbps speeds.

In 2004, NTT Docomo and Renesas began joint development work on the SH-Mobile series of single-chip LSI devices, which integrate a baseband processor that supports dual-mode communication and an application processor.

This will be the fourth product to emerge from this collaboration.

The joint development work has since progressed to include handset manufacturers such as Fujitsu and Sharp as partners in the development of mobile phone platforms.

Each platform has an SH-Mobile G series product as the core component and includes a basic software suit, middleware and drivers, and a reference chipset in a single package.

By using the new platforms, mobile phone manufacturers can eliminate the need to develop basic functions independently, significantly reducing development time and costs.