ASIA China : Spreadtrum Communications announced its new SC8800S product - a TD-SCDMA/GSM dual-mode baseband chip designed to support HSDPA/EDGE and dedicated for the data card market.

With this new SC8800S offering, Spreadtrum believes that its broad offering of TD-SCDMA solutions will address the various needs of the market and help the commercial adoption of this 3G technology. The SC8800S marks the latest in Spreadtrum's family of 3G baseband solutions, with this new product designed for the data card market.

The SC8800S chip not only includes the same type of high integration as previous Spreadtrum baseband chipsets, but also meets EDGE (EGPRS Class10) standard and offers high-speed HSDPA data transmission rates up to 1.6Mbps. With such high- speed data transmission rates, the data card using SC8800S is able to support enhanced multimedia functions such as wireless access, video on demand (VOD) or video blogging on the computer. Therefore, the SC8800S chip should facilitate the convergence of mobile communication devices with the Internet, making it possible for users to enjoy the efficiencies of wireless networks.

Commenting on the announcement, Dr. Qiang Cao, Spreadtrum's Vice President of Marketing, said, "With the introduction of the SC8800S, Spreadtrum has again demonstrated its efforts in speeding up the development of TD-SCDMA technology. As the commercialization of TD-SCDMA progresses, Spreadtrum will focus on designs to improve high-speed services in the wireless communication market while still meeting the basic demands for quality voice communication via mobile phones. We believe that the SC8800S chip contains features that will enable consumers to experience fast services on TD-SCDMA and EDGE networks."

About SC8800S SC8800S utilizes ARM926EJ-S(R) core (with core frequency speeds up to 200MHz). Key features include: PS uplink 128kbps/ downlink 384kbps; HSDPA transmission rates up to 1.6Mbps; Firmware supports for GSM/GPRS standards (release V8.2.0 12/1999), GSM900/DCS1800/PCS1900, EGPRS Class10 and TD-SCDMA standards (3GPP release 5), 2010~2025 MHz; Package: 14x14mm2 349-ball LFBGA package. Shipping Status SC8800S chipsets are currently available for sampling and are expected to be in volume production by the end of 2007.

About Spreadtrum: Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops, and markets baseband processor solutions for the mobile wireless communications market. Spreadtrum combines its semiconductor design expertise with its software development capabilities to deliver highly- integrated baseband processors with multimedia functionality and power management. Spreadtrum has developed its solutions based on an open development platform, enabling its customers to develop customized wireless products that are feature-rich and meet their cost and time-to-market requirements.