Infineon Technologies Opens Austrian Development Center For UMTS

Infineon Technologiesd <%=company%> has opened a new development center in Linz, Austria. The new development center, Danube Integrated Circuit Engineering GmbH & Co. KG (DICE), will develop third-generation mobile radio chips using the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) standard. Infineon has a 50.3 per cent stake in the development center, with the other shares held by the technical managers of DICE Dr. Weigel, and Dr. Hagelauer, both from the University of Linz.

According to Gunter Weinberger, head of the Wireless Products Division of Infineon, "We have been working closely with the University of Linz since 1998 and this collaboration has enabled us to develop the first prototype chips using the UMTS standard for the next generation of mobile phones."

Collaborative efforts have been very successful. One year after joint development began, the first prototype chip—a complete superheterodyne receiver of more than 4,000 components with a chip area of just 2.44 mm by 3.01 mm was manufactured in Munich. In April 2000, the first chip for the Japanese UMTS market was produced, featuring a fully integrated UMTS superheterodyne transceiver.

Currently, 30 development and test engineers are employed at DICE, with the number expected to rise to 70 in the next few years. Dr. Weigel and Dr. Hagelauer are responsible for technical management of the development center while Edwin Moser of Infineon Technologies is the financial manager.

As part of Infineon's worldwide development network strategy, the new development center will play a key role in supporting the existing centers and ensuring a constant exchange of knowledge. Infineon Technologies has other development centers in Bangalore, India; Bristol, UK; Burlington/East Fishkill, Durham, Longmont, Princeton, Santa Cruz, and San Jose, US; Singapore; Sophia Antipolis, France; Tel Aviv, Israel; Graz and Villach, Austria; and Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Ulm, and Munich, Germany.

Although GSM has been the most-subscribed wireless standard for the past seven years, the demand for multimedia features and the skyrocketing increase in Internet traffic has created a significant bottleneck in GSM bands. UMTS is at the forefront as the new standard for the third generation of mobile phones to facilitate rapid data transfer for Internet services, multimedia and new service concepts. UMTS is expected to be launched on the Japanese market in April 2001, with Europe following some time in 2002.

Edited by Winn Hardin, Wireless Design Online