Altair Semiconductor Provides Power Efficient Chipsets to WILLCOM - TMCnet

Altair Semiconductor Provides Power Efficient Chipsets to WILLCOM
TMCnet
By Anuradha Shukla

May 27, 2008

Altair Semiconductor has announced it will supply the chipsets for wireless devices operating on WILLCOM next generation Personal Handyphone System ("XG-PHS") in Japan.

Altair has been contracted to supply its ALTx150 series ultra-low power and high performance chipsets to WILLCOM's authorized ecosystem of mobile handset and handheld device manufacturers. Altair's XG-PHS chipset will be distributed through its agent in Japan, Internix Inc.

Oded Melmed, CEO and a co-founder of Altair noted that WILLCOM is the pioneer of PHS deployment in Japan and has an extraordinary track record for pushing the envelope on performance and service quality. According to Melmed, WILLCOM's selection of Altair's chipset validates their development of highly flexible and power-efficient processors that allow them to address different 4G markets and technologies with a single semiconductor platform.

Altair believes a relationship with WILLCOM will be highly strategic in the early stages of their initial feasibility study, conducted with Harel-Hertz Investment House, who they also worked with through the project negotiations.

WILLCOM is one of only two licensees of 2.5GHz mobile broadband spectrum in Japan. The company will deploy its next generation PHS network using orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing access (OFDMA) technology that has the ability to achieve higher capacity and lower cost per bit in contrast to traditional 3 and 3.5G cellular technologies.

Yoshioki Chika, executive vice president of WILLCOM said that in order to reach their goal to offer the highest capacity and best performing wireless network in the world, they needed to equip their device manufacturers with a flexible, low-power consumption chipset. Altair's world-class multi-mode 4G chipset portfolio and its underlying O2P processor architecture, which is capable of supporting a wide range of OFDMA standards, allow WILLCOM to benefit from high volume pricing and field proven semiconductors.

Altair is a developer of ultra-low power, small footprint and high performance mobile semiconductors that take broadband bandwidth beyond notebooks and USB adaptors to un-tethered, battery-operated handheld devices.