Japanese Tech Companies to Jointly Develop Platform for HSUPA Mobile Phone

Japanese Tech Companies to Jointly Develop PlaNTT DOCOMO, Renesas, Fujitsu and Sharp today announced that they 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 platform is targeted for completion by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 (January-March 2010), the companies said.

The new SH-Mobile G4 will be fabricated with 45-nm process technology to enable highly integrated functions and fast processing. It will provide enhanced functionality and improved performance for applications handling high-definition video and 3-D graphics. In addition to HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) cat.8 for extra-fast downlink speeds (max. 7.2 Mbps), the SH-Mobile G4 will support HSUPA (High-Speed Uplink Packet Access) to boost uplink speeds to a maximum of 5.7 Mbps, almost 15 times faster than the conventional 384kbps speeds, thereby enabling much faster bidirectional data transfers.

In 2004 NTT DOCOMO and Renesas began joint development work on the SH-Mobile G series of single-chip LSI devices, which integrate a baseband processor that supports dual-mode communication and an application processor. The SH-Mobile G4 will be the fourth product to emerge from this collaboration.

The joint development work by NTT DOCOMO and Renesas on single-chip LSI devices has since progressed to include handset manufacturers such as Fujitsu and Sharp as partners in the development of mobile phone platforms. Each platform has a SH-Mobile G series product as the core component and includes a basic software suite (OS, 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. This would allow them to invest more time and resources in developing distinctive handset features and expanding their product portfolios.

Renesas said that it planned to provide the platform to the worldwide mobile phone market, in addition to customers in Japan.