In the current stage of TD-SCDMA development, commercialization has already become its focus. However, the difference of commercializing TD-SCDMA products and other products lies in that so far the development of TD-SCDMA prototype referred largely to the service demands of 2.5G. Whether vendors should wait for the issuance of license, or the government and operators should wait for the mature environment of TD-SCDMA. TD-SCDMA commercialization has already become an puzzle in a circle. To find the answer to these hot topics, TD-SCDMA forum interviewed Mr. Li Zhemin, the senior manager of Asian Radio Technology Design Center of ADI.

When talking about the status quo of TD-SCDMA development, Li Zhemin said: cost is a very sensitive topic in China, the core competency of advanced technology comes mainly from its cost effectiveness. As a domestic technology, the future prospect of TD-SCDMA will be promising because of its cost advantages and efficiency in using the resources.

Li introduced that the development of TD-SCDMA overseas business depends mainly on its development in Chinese market. If the Chinese market can verify TD-SCDMA’s industrialization in aspects like the technology itself, the communication standard and applications for the end users, etc. and if other operators in the overseas market can see clearly its profit, the development of TD-SCDMA overseas market will become easier. In addition to technology, the degree of maturity of TD-SCDMA products and how it will be designed and applied mutually with FDD are also vital issues in developing its overseas market. He believed that the best way to develop TD-SCDMA overseas market will be: to adopt different mode of network deployment in different areas according to the actual requirements from operators.

As a traditional chip designer and solution provider, ADI has long devoted to the research and development of wireless communication technology and has invested heavily in the 2.5G and 3G standards including TD-SCDMA. Currently, ADI mainly focuses on the IC chip design; it is now able to provide a whole set of commercial solutions including digital baseband, analog baseband and radio frequency solutions, etc.

ADI initiated its R&D in TD-SCDMA field in 2001 and has now become the largest AD/DA signal processing provider in the world. It has a whole set of real time signal processing technologies. In the technical aspect, the key IC framework developed by ADI has already been applied in the platform AGE and has passed the product authentication. Its performance is stable and can be put into mass production. At the same time, in the analog signal end, ADI’s focus is on radio frequency technologies. ADI so far has already developed the RF solutions which are compatible with both FDD and TDD technologies.

As a company which began its operation in the technology field, ADI has strict requirements to different products to clients end. In Oct. 2004, ADI has released its engineering sample,which is mainly used for internal verification and debuggingof the function and technology standard of the chips. Meanwhile, ADI will provide its integrated commercial chipset to its partners and its clients. The commercial testing terminals will also be released in the middle of 2005.
When talking about ADI’s partners, Li introduced that ADI had announced its strategic partnership with Datang Mobile at the Hong Kong 3G Conference in November, 2004, which marked its formal entrance into the area of TD-SCDMA terminal development. In their cooperation, ADI will provide a complete set of chip platform and Datang Mobile is responsible for the development of software protocol stack. Currently, the two parts have already begun the systemdebugging. They guarantee that by February, 2005, a complete set of mobile phone protocol stack software can be installed into the clients’ end.

From the end users’ point of view, ADI and its partners have their exclusive advantages compared with other chip vendors, for their cooperation is the coalition among leading vendors, and ADI and its partners are on equal footing in their cooperation, they each focus on their own area and do not buy out the other party’ s technologies. ADI focuses on the development of hardware and IC and provides Datang continuously with powerful chip kernels, while Datang Mobile provides solutions base on ADI chips and develop their own software stack. Both sides will face the end users together and strive to provide better solutions seamlessly for them. This is extremely attractive for the clients.

Currently, there are altogether more than 8000 employees in ADI globally, among which more than 1/3 are technical personnel. The TD-SCDMA core technology is provided jointly by its headquarter in Boston, North America, the RF Design Center in the Great Briton and the Baseband Design Center in Europe. The core technology is then be transformed to mobile phone board design by the Mobile Phone Application Design Center located in Shanghai. The main mobile phone system R&D organizations of ADI in Asian areas are: Mobile Phone Application Design Center located in Shanghai, the focus of which is the mobile phone design; and the IC Design Center in Beijing, which focus on the IC development. Now, ADI’ s TD-SCDMA hardware team in shanghai is working with the software team from Datang Software Branch on TD-SCDMA hardware and the hardware DSP algorithm.

For the TD-SCDMA product planning, Li introduced that ADI will work step by step, Which means to provide the clients continuously with stable and reliable technical solutions and the mobile phone vendors after the performance of the products are stable. These products will be introduced again to the overseas market when they are fully verified by the market.

When talking about the market competition and cooperation nowadays in the TD-SCDMA field, Li said that competition is actually everywhere. He is happy to see that IC is now developed in China and he realized that the R&D in China is developing fast. At present, ADI is attempting to cooperate strategically with local vendors and introduce IC R&D into China at appropriate time, this will further improve ADI’ s core competence.

Li was so touched when talking about the 3G planning issues currently concerned by both the industry and the public. He said from the development of TD-SCDMA, every aspect of the technology is evolving. The network layer, terminal layer, hardware and software, IC layer of TD-SCDMA, etc is developing step by step and in accordance with the natural law. The prospects in its commercialization are promising. However, the key factor in the success of TD-SCDMA lies in the explicit planning of 3G by the government and the operators. In addition, the selection of operators also has substantial influences on the product design and service development of TD-SCDMA vendors. At present, the further development of the whole industry needs the substantial support from the IPR owners and the government.

Li appealed that the service demands of different operators will influence directly the technologies adopted by the manufacturers. Firstly, what the government need to further make clear is that who will be the key TD-SCDMA operator. Secondly, TD-SCDMA manufacturers are eager to hear the voices from the operators, and if possible, the customized demand of TD-SCDMA products. Li suggested that the communications between the operators and manufactures should be reinforced. Functions and service demands of TD-SCDMA should be clarified by operators according to the actual situation and then be used to guide the mobile phone design.