US : Ethertronics announced that Samsung selected its Isolated Magnetic Dipole (IMD) Antennas to be incorporated into Samsung's Ultra Edition II handsets. This announcement follows news that Samsung outperformed its rivals and is now the number-two handset maker in the world, in part due to the success of its Ultra Edition handset line.

Ethertronics' IMD antennas are incorporated into Samsung's SGH-U300 and SGH-U600 handset models and the award-winning SGH-U700, representing three-fourths of Samsung's Ultra Edition II product line. Ethertronics' IMD antennas also powered the majority of Samsung's 3G Ultra Edition handset line, which was released in 2006.

"Our IMD technology enables handset manufacturers to make a design statement without sacrificing performance. Samsung's Ultra Edition handset line is known for its slim design and feature-rich capabilities; being selected as the antenna provider for the majority of handsets for this line a second time in a row solidifies Ethertronics' ease-of-integration and optimal performance capabilities," said Laurent Desclos, PhD, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Business Operations for Ethertronics. "Ethertronics' IMD Technology satisfies the handset manufacturer's ergonomic vision and carrier's performance specifications yielding outstanding RF performance and enabling a compelling form factor."

According to Mobile Today, Ovum analyst Martin Garner said, "Samsung's handset business has been growing strongly over that last year, fuelled by its Ultra Edition and its push into lower tiers for emerging markets." IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker has determined that the second largest mobile phone vendor is Samsung, with 13.7% of market share. Again, it is believed that the success of the company is mainly because of its Ultra Edition phones and Ultra Special devices.

Integrating Ethertronics' antennas enables feature-rich handsets such as Samsung's U300, U600 and U700 to have multi-functioning capabilities yet maintain a slim and attractive form factor while reducing SAR emissions. Each of the phones contains a digital camera, SMS and email capabilities, as well as other compelling features. Designing high-performance antennas for the world's thinnest phones presented a design challenge that IMD technology was able to solve. The Ethertronics quad-band antennas integrated in the U300, U600 and U700 handsets were space confined to less than 8mm of height overall, and were set back less than .5mm from the outer case.

In addition to Samsung, Ethertronics' antennas have been designed and integrated into several global manufacturers' handsets, including Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Symbol, as well as an innovative GPS watch from Casio and Bluetooth modules for HP notebook computers.

About Ethertronics

Ethertronics designs and manufactures high-performance standard and customized embedded antenna solutions for wideband and multi-band wireless devices. Ethertronics' leading-edge antenna product lines have been selected by major customers to support a wide range of applications including cellular, UMTS, WiFi, WiMAX, Bluetooth, GPS, MediaFLO and DVB-H among others. The company's patented Isolated Magnetic Dipole(TM) (IMD) technology enables wireless equipment manufacturers to tune both the antenna and antenna feed-line independent of each other, allowing for smaller size, flexibility in design implementation, shortened design cycle and higher overall performance, while simultaneously meeting and improving upon standard safety emission requirements. The U.S.-headquartered company maintains a global network of design centers and low-cost, high-volume manufacturing operations.