NXP Semiconductors (News - Alert), an independent semiconductor company founded by Philips, has announced the launch of a high-bandwidth cellular soft modem, Nexperia Cellular System Solution PNX6910, claiming that it’s the world’s fastest.

 

Powered by NXP’s Embedded Vector Processor (News - Alert) (EVP), a Digital Signal Processing core, this latest offering from NXP is capable of achieving data transfer rates of 150 Mbits downlink and 50 Mbits uplink, and supports multi-mode LTE (News - Alert)/HSPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/GSM capability.

 

Company officials said that Nexperia Cellular System Solution PNX6910 is capable of downloading an entire HD movie in less than 7 minutes, which over twenty times faster than today’s HSPA Cat 8 devices at 7.2 Mbs.

 

In addition, this solution is also optimized for a wide range of consumer electronics including mobile phones, digital still and video cameras, next generation laptops, Internet tablets and ultra-mobile PCs.

 

The PNX6910, company’s officials said, will allow cellular phone and Consumer Electronics manufacturers to participate in the LTE market from the very start, with a reference design that can connect a wide variety of handheld products through cellular services to the internet.

 

The PNX6910’s software programmable vector processor enables multi-mode capability and supports the entire GSM family of standards, including LTE TDD for China.

 

Officials explained that the soft modem approach reduces chip design effort by 1.5 to 2 years due to parallel design phases, and this approach incorporates multi-mode functionality on a single RF chip and a single baseband chip.

 

Dan Rabinovitsj, senior vice president and general manager of cellular business at NXP Semiconductors, said that multimedia content sharing and Web 2.0 services will be the drivers for next-generation handsets and a new breed of connected consumer electronics.

 

“The PNX6910 will provide consumers with the data services and experiences they are used to from the Internet, while they are on-the-go,” he said.

 

NXP’s  Nexperia Cellular System Solution PNX6910 is expected to be available in the second quarter of 2009.