InterDigital releases HSDPA ASIC

InterDigital today said it has prepared its high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) co-processor chip and is now ready to begin licensing the 3G technology to its vendor partners.

InterDigital first unveiled its HSDPA technology stack at the 3GSM World Congress on a demonstration board, but for the last year has been preparing a miniature Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), which will be the model for commercial chipsets.

The silicon technologist does not actually manufacture the ASICs themselves, but rather licenses the technology--either the design itself or the intellectual property required to make the design--to its vendor partners. The coprocessor forms a component of the overall baseband chip, which is pressed whole and shipped to handset manufacturers. Philips announced in August it would be the first silicon vendor to use the design.

InterDigital already has a sizable presence among UMTS handset manufacturers. Its Wideband CDMA technology has been integrated into handsets and UMTS chipsets made by Nokia, NEC, Sharp, Sanyo, Danger, Kyocera, Philips, HTC, Danger and General Dynamics.