Third Generation Mobile Phones

Rapid shift to third-generation mobile phones with emergence of 3.5-generation mobile phones expected soon

Mobile phones are the backbone of mobile communications and have experienced explosive growth. Since the year 2000, mobile phone growth within Japan has slowed due to the high level of market penetration and the limited number of consumers that do not already own a mobile phone. Currently, the mobile phone market is mainly supported by consumers replacing their old models with newer ones.

Third-generation mobile phones* (hereafter referred to as "3G mobiles") are expected to be extremely popular and fuel further replacement demand. Telecommunication firms all over the world are preparing to deploy third-generation networks. 3G mobiles provide a next generation mobile phone service that aims to offer high-speed 2M/second communication using high transmission efficiency in the high frequency 2GHz band. This will allow multi-media communication (such as animated images), a typical example of which is viewing TV on a mobile phone. This offers a groundbreaking way to use mobile phones.

Imminent is the practical application of new technology called "3.5G" which realizes further high-speed data communication by developing the technology base of the 3G mobile. This not only realizes maximum 12Mbps transmission speed but was developed with fixed-rate communications in mind, so together with the high transmission speed of maximum 12M bits/second, a cheaper and more comfortable mobile environment is about to be realized.

*3rd generation mobile phone
Mobile phone (mobile communication) use has undergone the changes shown below.

First-generation mobile phone (1G): Used mainly as a car phone service, started in December 1979, provided using analog technology.

Second-generation mobile phone (2G): Used digital technology launched in March 1993 (PDC format was used inside Japan). After services other than communication services such as i-mode were added, became also referred to as 2.5 generation (2.5G).

Third-generation mobile phone (3G): Uses high-speed communication and the highly efficient W-CDMA technology. The first 3G service in Japan was NTT DoCoMo's "FOMA", which started in October 2001. A mobile phone based on high-speed communication technology called "3G" which realizes 3M bits/second or over by developing the current 3G technology will be on the market soon.

Supplying high-performance devices to enable convenient use of various applications

The mobile phone is functionally divided into the communication part and application part. The evolution of the former is as stated above, but the latter part is also rapidly becoming multifunctional by utilizing high-speed communications. Some examples are: high pixel built-in digital cameras; accurate capturing of location information by GPS (Global Positioning System); evolution of sound sources such as termination sounds with a greater range of expression; and built-in electronic money functions. Viewing of terrestrial digital broadcasts is also about to become possible.

In order to use these functions with ease, screens are becoming high precision. Also, a technology to make the screen connection cables thinner is now necessary in order to use the tilting biaxial mechanism that rotates the screen to any direction for viewing. And in order to contain in a palm-size device all the performance of the PCs of several generations before, many difficult hurdles must be overcome. Examples include reducing power consumption to extremely low levels; high-speed signal processing; and small packaging with excellent heat radiation capability. NEC Electronics is responding to such sophisticated demands by taking the following three approaches:

(1) At present, we provide various semiconductors including CPUs for both communication processing (digital base band) parts and parts that process higher applications such as digital cameras, GPS, sound sources, and TV tuners. In the future we will focus in particular on semiconductors for the latter, and provide a variety of value-added products for mobile phones.
(2) 3G mobile will be using more LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and multi-panels. To drive these devices more smoothly, we will provide LCD driver/controllers for color TFTs and large panels. Also, we have started developing a technology to make the connection cable between the cards and LCD screen thinner by making them serial cables.
(3) In order to perform the processing described above, a number of high capacity memory types are required. At the same time, only a limited amount of space is available inside the mobile phone and the physical memory size must be kept as small as possible. To satisfy these contradictory requirements, high-density memory and custom IC mounting are used. A package solution will be provided that places everything into a single package using SIP (System in Package) technology.

NEC Electronics will also provide various devices that can be used with conventional second-generation mobile terminals. Please see the following block diagram.

Figure 1:Functional block diagram of a third generation mobile phone
-- Expansion of baseband LSI to overseas markets and our initiatives to that end --

At NEC Electronics we are proud to command the largest share of the Japanese 3G mobile phone market. Hoping to expand this cutting edge technology to overseas markets, in addition to the domestically acquired "W-CDMA" 3G mobile phone standard, in cooperation with NEC, we are developing dual mode baseband LSI able to function with the "GSM/GPRS/EDGE" 2G/2.5G standards currently most common in other countries.
** Part enclosed in red dotted lines in the block diagram above.

When marketing this LSI, up to the communication protocol software processing part will be packaged, making it fairly easy to design a dual mobile terminal supporting 2G/2.5G as well as 3G. Also, the data communication section will contain HSDPA, next generation high-speed communication technology, thus allowing building of the high-speed data communication environment for which 3G mobile phones are designed.

We will also actively market this baseband LSI to companies outside the NEC group, with the aim of establishing a global business standard for 3G base band LSI.

We are also planning to integrate into this baseband LSI the parallel application processor unveiled on September 27, 2004, allowing us to offer integrated solution for the world of 3G mobile phones.
***The block diagram shows the portion surrounded by green dotted lines being integrated into the portion surrounded by red dotted lines.

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