picoChip unveils TD-SCDMA femtocell

UK-based chip shop, picoChip, has unveiled it’s a femtocell reference design supporting China’s homegrown TD-SCDMA standard.

The PC8808 TD-SCDMA femtocell reference design supports HSDPA and can integrate both Node B and protocol stack, integrating back into the core network using a number of different architectures including SIP, UMA or Iu, the company said.

Yang Hua, secretary general of TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance, said, “Femtocells are an important part of the TD-SCDMA ecosystem, and an essential part of operator strategy, particularly as we evolve to TD-SCDMA LTE. picoChip’s achievement significantly pushes the TD-SCDMA industry forward.”

picoChip itself expects TD-SCDMA, as the third 3G standard, is to launch in the Olympic cities this summer.

Stuart Carlaw, research director for ABI Research, said, “Femtocells help carriers solve problems of both coverage and capacity which are applicable to all standards, including TD-SCDMA. Given how good coverage already is in China for mobile services, consumers will expect excellent indoor services too: something that is particularly important for data, which is already in high use in the region.

“For both these reasons, I’d expect TD-SCDMA femtocells to be later in deployment, but to ramp as fast if not faster than those for WCDMA.  picoChip is the leading provider of femtocell chips, and once more demonstrates this position of leadership with its software-defined architecture.”