Tokyo, June 1, 1998 -- Mitsubishi Electric Corporation ("Mitsubishi Electric," President: Takashi Kitaoka) and SK Telecom of South Korea ("SK-T," President: Soe, Jeong-UK) have jointly developed an IC for radio modules of W-CDMA next-generation portable telephones. Mitsubishi Electric and SK-T announced today that development is to proceed to a field testing program.

It is hoped that W-CDMA will become the world standard for the next generation of portable telephones. Japan, South Korea and Europe have all but decided to adopt this system as their new standard, bringing the three regions into line with each other.

W-CDMA can handle still and motion video at up to 2Mbps. It is believed that this makes W-CDMA based systems suitable for use not only as regular telephones but also as TV telephones or as portable data terminals incorporating GPS units. Estimates suggest that by 2005, upwards of 50 percent of the estimated 500 million portable terminals manufactured worldwide will be for use with W-CDMA based systems.

Mitsubishi Electric and SK-T's joint development program has made it possible for a standardized radio module chip to be supplied to users not only in South Korea and Japan but also throughout the rest of the Asian region and as far afield as Europe, promoting widespread use of the W-CDMA system.

Mitsubishi Electric developed the RF and IF ICs using its special radio module high-frequency process and circuit technology. SK-T has created a radio module based on the new ICs and incorporated it into an experimental handset. The company will field test the new handset in 1999.

From here on, the two companies will be looking to increase the scale of integration of the new ICs and to add in a range of peripheral functions with a view to developing a complete chip set including a baseband IC. The companies are planning to introduce a commercially viable product in the autumn of 1999 in preparation for the launch of a full commercial service in the year 2000.

[Reference]
SK Telecom Co., Ltd

President: Soe, Jeong-UK
Capital: US$ 930 million
Sales: US$ 2,482 million
Employees: 5,500
Major business: portable telephones, pager business, internet business, etc.