Freescale Semiconductor is developing a highly integrated, single chip RF solution for 3G mobilephones. Targeted for the Japan market, this RF solution supports tri-band WCDMA and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE. The RF solution is based on Freescale’s advanced 90nm RF CMOS process technology and delivers an antenna-to-bits functionality in asingle chip. Additionally, it is capable of meeting Category 8 HSDPAand HSUPA requirements.
ACCESS Co., Ltd., a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, today announced that its NetFront browser has been deployed in 11 SANYO handset models available in regions throughout the world including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and New Zealand. Powered by NetFront browser, SANYO handsets represent some of the best-selling devices available from SANYO’s mobile operator partners. NetFront has been selected as the browser technology for 11 SANYO handsets, which include the SCP-8300, SCP-9000, SCP-7500, SCP7400/QW, SCP-4920/QW, SCP-8200/QW, SCP-2300/NZ, SCP-9000/NZ, SCP-2300/CA, SCP-8300/CA, and SANYO MVP models.
Sony Ericsson has just announced the M600 phone and messaging device [ .jpg image ]. This is a fully-specified email tool and mobile phone rolled into an extremely stylish, slim device featuring a touch screen and handwriting recognition. M600 is the second Symbian OS 9.1 and UIQ 3.0 enabled phone in the Sony Ericsson portfolio offering users great customisation opportunities and the ability to buy personal productivity and other applications from the Sony Ericsson Application Shop. New push email applications, remote synchronisation and expandable memory give owners a UMTS phone and email connectivity in a device that easily fits in their pocket – at just 15mm thick, it is one of the slimmest business UMTS devices of its kind available.
NTT DoCoMo just announced three prototype high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) handsets developed with Fujitsu, Motorola (Wow!) and NEC. HSDPA, a high-speed packet transmission technology standardized by the Third Generation Partnership Project, offers a theoretical maximum downlink speed of about 14 Mbps. The handsets will be demonstrated at DoCoMo’s booth at the 3GSM World Congress 2006 in Barcelona, Spain from February 13 to 16.
DoCoMo aims to start HSDPA services sometime between July and September 2006 (as per our recent bold prediction for 2006 — Eds).
NTT DoCoMo and High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) announced today they have agreed to market HTC 3G FOMA handsets with Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 operating systems. DoCoMo and HTC aim to launch commercial sales sometime in the second half of 2006. The phones will be targeted at corporate users and offer enterprise services such as synchronization with MS Windows Server and MS Exchange Server. The phones will also provide dual-mode W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS connectivity, Wireless LAN and a QWERTY keyboard. (Looks like another nice boost for Microsoft in the Japan mobile space — Eds.)
This week was a new-cell-phone-announcement triple-play! Following DoCoMo on Tuesday and Vodafone yesterday, KDDI’s au brand held a press conference this afteroon at the super-swank New Otani hotel to unveil an impressive spring line-up. From L. to R. (below): Toshiba’s W41T with Japan’s first built-in 4GB HDD, the slick-styled Neon, is the latest addition to the in-house Design Project; Hitachi’s W41H ‘One-Seg’ digital TV phone; Casio’s W41CA, featuring a FeliCa mobile wallet; Kyocera’s W41K is a ‘Full Function’ camera phone with a 3.2-megapixel cam; SonyEricsson’s W41S is also FeliCa IC-enabled; and finally the Sanyo W41SA, which has an interesting handwritten character scanning application. The new fleet will hit store shelves starting in February along with the introduction of an enhanced Listen Mobile Service.
