Samsung, NXP Semiconductors and T3G Technologies announced the world’s first TD-SCDMA HSDPA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE multi-mode mobile phone.

The phone has also been demoed at the PT/Wireless Exposition in Beijing on October 23rd. Powered by a software-defined modem capable of achieving data transfer rates of 2.8Mbps, the Samsung SGH-T578H enables about 20 times faster transfers than GPRS. The phone is based on the T3G7210 system solution featuring the industry’s first soft modem empowered by NXP’s Embedded Vector Processor (EVP) to achieve high data transfer and multi-mode capability.

NXP’s Adelante VD32040 embedded vector processor enables the modem to achieve 2.8Mbps peak data rates and fully supports the 3GPP TDD-LCR Standard Release 5 (HSDPA). The T3G7210 system solution also supports quad-band EDGE and dual-band TD-SCDMA with integrated multimedia accelerators to allow for the development of high-end feature phones without the need for additional external co-processors.

TD-SCDMA network deployments have been completed in 10 major cities across China where there are more than 70 million potential subscribers. This network is planned to be upgraded to support Release 5 (HSDPA) of the TD-SCDMA standard during the course of 2008. With the Samsung SGH-T578H mobile phone, users will be able to enjoy the widespread deployment of TD-SCDMA infrastructure to support high-speed streaming of multimedia coverage of the Beijing Olympics 2008. With this new milestone reached by Samsung, NXP and T3G, the TD-SCDMA standard is rapidly progressing towards the current W-CDMA capabilities.

“Together with NXP and T3G, we have achieved several major milestones for TD-SCDMA phones – from the first TD-SCDMA video phone to this current high data transfer rate TD-HSDPA dual-band prototype,” said Mr. W.S. Lee, Vice President, Handset R&D Planning, Telecommunication Network Business, Samsung Electronics.

“The China 3G subscription is expected to grow rapidly. By realizing 3.5G capabilities on Samsung’s SGH-T578H, NXP is driving the commercialization and adoption of next-generation wireless technologies – not only for China’s TD-SCDMA standard, but also proving successful our EVP-based software-defined radio approach,” said Marc Cetto, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Mobile & Personal Business Unit, NXP Semiconductors.

Mr. Johan Pross, CEO of T3G said, “The T3G7210 is the first cellular system solution to use NXP’s breakthrough embedded vector processor to support multi-mode and multi-standard platforms, also allowing us to deal with possible changes in the standard or operator requirements. It enables mobile phone makers to offer more commercialized handsets with a broad scope of 3G multimedia applications.”