Qualcomm gets Korean awards for CDMA ASICs

Electronic News, June 12, 1995

SAN DIEGO -- Qualcomm Inc. last week said it received purchase orders valued at a total of $8 million from LG Information and Communications and (LGIC) Samsung Electronics for ASICs based on its code division multiple access (CDMA) technology to be used with products destined for digital cellular radio telephone service in South Korea. That country, with a base of two million subscribers, selected CDMA as its national digital cellular standard in 1993 and is moving toward commercial deployment in early 1996.

Qualcomm said cellular service provider Korea Mobile Telecom (KMT) selected LGIC as its first CDMA infrastructure supplier. KMT plans to migrate its current analog system to a Qualcomm-based CDMA system and Qualcomm will supply its CDMA ASICs to LGIC to meet KMT's requirements for an initial 100 cell sites to be deployed in two metropolitan areas.

Also, Shinsegi Telecom, a Korean consortium working on a CDMA network, awarded its first infrastructure contract to Samsung Electronics for 140 cell sites and two mobile switches, and Qualcomm will supply its CDMA ASICs to Samsung for Shinsegi's deployment.

LGIC and Samsung are two of Qualcomm's CDMA infrastructure and subscriber equipment licensees in Korea. Other Korean licensees include Hyundai and Maxon, both of which are CDMA handset suppliers which have already received orders for dual-mode (analog/CDMA digital) cellular subscriber equipment.

On the home front, Qualcomm's potential fortunes were also buoyed last week in the cellular-rivaling wireless personel communications services (PCS) field when PCS PrimeCo. disclosed it will use Qualcomm-based CDMAS technology for its network. PCS PrimeCo., among the winners of a recent FCC frequency spectrum auction for such a network, is a venture of Nynex, Bell Atlantic, U S West and Air-Touch Communications.