picoChip now supports all three 3G standards families

Mr. Yang Hua, the secretary general of TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance, said, “Femtocells are an important part of the TD-SCDMA ecosystem, and an essential part of operator strategy, particularly as we evolve to TD-SCDMA LTE. picoChip's achievement significantly pushes the TD-SCDMA industry forward.”

Stuart Carlaw, Research Director ABI Research, added, “Femtocells help carriers solve problems of both coverage and capacity which are applicable to all standards, including TD-SCDMA. Given how good coverage already is in China for mobile services, consumers will expect excellent indoor services too: something that is particularly important for data, which is already in high use in the region. For both these reasons, I’d expect TD-SCDMA femtocells to be later in deployment, but to ramp as fast if not faster than those for WCDMA. picoChip is the leading provider of femtocell chips, and once more demonstrates this position of leadership with its software-defined architecture.”

With this introduction picoChip now supports all three 3G standards families: WCDMA (HSPA) through the picoChip PC8208/8209, cdma2000 via GWT partnership, and now TD-SCDMA with the PC8808. picoChip also supports WiMAX Waves 1 and 2 with its PC6530 and PC6532 single chip reference designs respectively.

picoChip clearly recognises the benefits of exploiting the globalised business world. The exciting new products were developed by picoChip jointly in Bath and Beijing, but are in high demand from customers world-wide,” said Andrew Cahn, chief executive of UK Trade & Investment. “picoChip's joint ventures with its Chinese partners, and also with the Olympics later this year, demonstrate the real opportunities that exist in China for British businesses.

The PC8808 TD-SCDMA femtocell reference design supports HSDPA and is the industry’s lowest cost complete solution. The picoChip single-chip platform can integrate both Node B and protocol stack, and can easily integrate back into the core network using a number of different architectures including SIP, UMA or Iu.

“This announcement is a further example of picoChip’s continuing commitment to the Chinese market and this is the first product to be wholly developed locally at our Beijing Design Center. It follows hot-on-the-heels of the recent partnership announcement with Xinwei for the implementation of its McWILL network, to be deployed for the Olympics,” said Guillaume d'Eyssautier, president and CEO picoChip, recently named to GSA EMEA Leadership council. “We aim to continue this momentum as we further support Chinese wireless development.”

The single-chip PC202-based design is software defined and delivers baseband complete with upper layer software stacks included. It is based on the same architecture as the PC8208/HSDPA and 8208/HSUPA platforms.

picoChip is the leading supplier of multi-core DSP delivering extremely high performance at competitive cost points. It offers a powerful platform to develop products for emerging global wireless communications markets such as WiMAX, LTE, McWILL, TD-SCDMA and 4G. picoChip’s products scale from femtocell access points to sophisticated multi-sector carrier macrocells.

In addition to TD-SCDMA femtocells, picoChip is recognized as the leading silicon supplier in WCDMA/HSPA femtocells, and is involved in most of the current operator field trials. Customers include ipAccess, Ubiquisys and other undisclosed leading manufacturers. picoChip is a founding member, and is on the executive board, of the Femto Forum.