VIA Mulls 2003 CDMA Chip Debut on Chinese Mainland

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, October 26, 2002

VIA Mulls 2003 CDMA Chip Debut on Chinese Mainland

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The world's third largest computer processor maker, VIA Technologies, may start supplying handset chips for code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile systems on the Chinese mainland next year to follow the lead of US giant Qualcomm Inc, the only player in the CDMA chip market.

"We believe that CDMA chips will have huge market potentials on the mainland," said Wenchi Chen, president and chief executive officer of the Taiwan-based chip company.

He made the remark at the Third VIA Technology Forum, held recently in Beijing with a theme of "Total Connectivity: From Vision to Reality," which focused on the latest developments in the computer and wireless chip industries.

Chen said his company's wireless communications subsidiary VIA Telecom will set up a research and development team in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province.

According to Ker Zhang, VIA Telecom's chief executive officer, it may start delivering CDMA chips to the Chinese mainland market next year.

"We have been well positioned to be a winner in the CDMA baseband market," Zhang said.

VIA Technologies acquired the CDMA design centre of US chip maker LSI Logic Inc in May and renamed it VIA Telcom.

The firm also announced last Thursday it had bought Swedish chipless integrated circuit firm Freehand DSP AB for its digital signal processing technology.

Chen said the move will bring necessary resources to VIA Technologies in wireless communications with its programmable designs and low power consumption.

Liu Qiang, a mobile communications integrated circuit design expert in the Chinese capital, believes the entry of VIA Telecom into the CDMA chip market will benefit domestic mobile phone makers.

"VIA Technologies' experience and resources in computer chip design and making will enable VIA Telecom to lower cost, while providing more functions, so that will be a piece of good news to mainland phone vendors," he said.

According to the mainland's second largest mobile carrier China United Communications, it had acquired 4 million CDMA subscribers by last Monday and the figure may reach 7 million by the end of the year.

The company is also expanding its present CDMA network to boost its capacity by another 15 million users when the network is completed next year and offer high-speed Internet access via mobile phones.

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