As far as consumer adoption goes, China is predicted to be the next great handset market. As a result, many companies are working to get their products and technologies into those devices. In its SoftFone-LCR chip set, for example, Analog Devices now offers a complete chip set for developers of 3G mobile terminals based on the TD-SCDMA Low Chip Rate (LCR) air interface. Powered by ADI's Blackfin processor, the chip set provides all of the critical functions that are needed to build a TD-SCDMA handset. It includes the baseband signal processing and control, analog-interface functions, and radio.

The company's SoftFone-LCR chip set is based on the popular RAM-based SoftFone architecture, which is used in ADI's GSM/GPRS and EDGE chip sets. The chip set incorporates a digital baseband processor that operates at over 250 MHz. It also draws very low power, thanks to Blackfin's Dynamic power- management capability.

Unlike less complete TD-SCDMA-focused chip sets, the SoftFone-LCR's baseband signal processing—including joint detection and decoding—is performed entirely in software instead of in a hardware implementation. The software runs on the embedded Blackfin Processor core, allowing terminal developers to quickly and easily adapt to evolutionary changes in the LCR standard. The software for the SoftFone-LCR chip set is provided by Datang Mobile. It has been using the Analog Devices Blackfin Processor in development platforms to provide a TD-SCDMA mobile terminal and a TD-SCDMA PCMCIA data card. That data card achieves the TD-SCDMA MTNet test.

The chip set's analog baseband and power-management IC provides a full set of audio features as well as efficient power management. The SoftFone-LCR chip set also includes the Othello-W direct-conversion radio transceiver. That transceiver can serve for either LCR time-division-duplex (TDD) or W-CDMA frequency-division-duplex (FDD) terminals. In addition the SoftFone-LCR chip set includes interfaces for cameras, color displays, IR, USB, and SD/MMC. It allows handset manufacturers to create several designs with varying levels of feature sets for a wide range of phone models.

For information on pricing, please contact the company.

Analog Devices Inc.
One Technology Way, P.O. Box 9106, Norwood, MA 02062-9106; (800) 262-5643, FAX: (781) 461-4482, www.analog.com.