Lucent Claims 3G Chip Breakthrough

Bell Labs, the research arm of Lucent Technologies has
claimed a breakthrough technology that increases the capacity and speed if
third-generation (3G) products.

The struggling telecommunications equipment maker said the new chip design
improves the efficiency of a chip used in its third generation (3G)
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) network equipment and also
increases the number of users that can tap into the wireless networks.

“This new chip design will substantially increase wireless network capacity,
consequently reducing costs for mobile operators,” Lucent said in a
statement.

The Murray Hill, N.J.-based firm, claimed the new baseband processor would
allow base stations equipment to serve up to 10 percent more customers —
with the highest data transmission speeds — than base stations
incorporating other available baseband processors.

“It also makes possible less power-hungry mobile devices able to accommodate
multimedia communications at data speeds comparable to cable modem or
digital subscriber line (DSL) broadband Internet access technologies,” the
company said.

Lucent has licensed the technology for incorporation into chipsets for UMTS
handsets, wireless PC modem cards and other devices.

It said the new technology – dubbed “Unified Turbo/Viterbi Channel
Decoder” — would reduce the need for host processor support, which require
the most computing resources.

“This provides a bottom-line benefit to service providers in terms of
improved performance, and return on investment,” said Paul Mankiewich, chief
technical officer of Lucent’s Mobility Solutions Group, which developed the
new technology with the Bell Labs research arm.

It said the chip upgrade includes features that enable the Unified
Turbo/Viterbi Channel Decoder to support more voice and data calls than
competitors’ solutions, which typically require software intervention to
change service combinations.

The decoder would support any mix of voice and data services needed for UMTS
networks and would support both voice and data services for any 3G digital
wireless standard.

Lucent said the new chips would decode UMTS 2 Megabits per second data
streams and provide up to a 12 percent increase in link sensitivity,
improvements that would extend the coverage area of its new OneBTS base
station.