Altair powers WILLCOM 4G network demo

HOD HASHARON, ISRAEL: Altair Semiconductor, a fabless chip company developing the world's most advanced 4G mobile semiconductors for handheld devices, announced that its FourGee-4150 chipset powered today's 4G wireless network demonstration by WILLCOM, Japan's largest PHS technology operator.

The live demonstration recorded extremely high simultaneous over-the-air throughput rates of 19Mbps down and 12Mbps up on the WILLCOM XGP network. This is the highest performance demonstrated on any commercial mobile broadband network in Japan, including WiMAX or HSDPA.

"WILLCOM's network performance demonstration is a significant milestone in the development of advanced 4G wireless networks, and Altair is proud to have been WILLCOM's chip supplier for the demonstration and the leading chip supplier for their current XGP network rollout," said Oded Melamed, CEO of Altair Semiconductor. "The results of this test are a strong testimony to the ultra-high performance of Altair's multi-mode 4G architecture."

Altair has partnered with WILLCOM since May of 2008, when the company was selected to supply chipsets for wireless devices operating on WILLCOM's XGP network in Japan. Since then, Altair and its ecosystem partners have proven that it is possible to achieve exceptional speed while keeping the power consumption lower than alternative 3.5G technologies.

In addition to providing chipsets for WILLCOM's XGP network, Altair has been shipping a mobile WiMAX chipset, the FourGee-2150, and is in a very advanced development stage of an LTE baseband and RF chipset. Altair's LTE chipset, like its mobile WiMAX and XGP products, focuses on combining high performance with extreme power efficiency, small size and cost effectiveness.