US : InterDigital Communications announced the expansion of their long standing cooperative development and marketing agreement to include the joint development of HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) 3G protocol stack software technology for Infineon's 3G platform. HSDPA is a packet-based data service for 3G mobile networks supporting peak data transmission rates of 14 Mbps.

Since March 2001, InterDigital and Infineon have been developing and commercializing 3G technologies and products in a strategic relationship. Under the expanded agreement, InterDigital and Infineon will continue to jointly develop and upgrade the 3G protocol stack incorporating UMTS Release 5 and HSDPA. InterDigital will be compensated for associated non-recurring engineering services.

"Infineon believes that by partnering with InterDigital in our 3G protocol stack development, we can more quickly bring a mature 3GPP Release 5 product to our customers, with committed HSDPA deliveries this quarter. We therefore are pleased to have expanded our joint 3G development with InterDigital to include HSDPA," said Thomas Lindner, Senior Director of Marketing at Infineon's Mobile Software Business Unit.

"Infineon is the second customer for HSDPA solutions from InterDigital, further validating our strength as an effective technology partner and leading provider of HSDPA technology," said Mark Lemmo, Senior Business Development and Product Management Officer.

InterDigital and Infineon also amended the royalty structure established under their original 2001 cooperative agreement. The new royalty rate structure extends the term and amends the per-unit royalty rates to be paid to InterDigital for the sale of Infineon's ASICs containing jointly-developed protocol stack software.