Fabless Semiconductor Start-Up Quorum Systems Commences Production with Ultra-low Power CMOS Quad-band GSM Transceiver
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SAN DIEGO, Oct. 16 -- Quorum Systems, Inc., a fabless semiconductor manufacturer specializing in highly integrated, ultra-low-power, high-performance CMOS radio frequency (RF) transceivers, announced today that the company has gone into volume production with its Sereno(TM) QS1000 quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE transceiver. Having launched the QS1000 in late-2005, the move into production follows a recently received purchase order from a North American manufacturer of wireless communications systems.
"Going into production with your first product represents a major milestone in the life of any semiconductor start-up," stated Bernard Xavier, President and CEO of Quorum Systems. "However, achieving this in the GSM cellular space is especially challenging, given the fierce competition that exists in this market. There have been many start-ups that have tried, but very few who have managed this feat. It is a testament to the quality of the team we have assembled here at Quorum."
Aside from building a dedicated operations team to ensure quality and reliability, Xavier also attributes Quorum's success to, "clear competitive advantages our products are able to offer our customers."
Manufactured from low-cost 0.18 micron CMOS, the QS1000 delivers best-in- class receive current of 60mA at -110dBm receive sensitivity, significantly extending the standby time and increasing a typical mobile phone's talk-time by more than 10 percent in GSM mode and 20 percent in EDGE mode. The QS1000 also supports a small footprint radio implementation with a complete RF front- end design for a quad-band GSM handset that fits into a footprint of 315mm2.
Based on a common core architecture, reaching production with the QS1000 also validates the other members of the Sereno family. This core radio architecture not only offers low power and area efficient designs but in response to mobile phone designer's requests, the Sereno family of products is also targeted to support design ease. As an example, employing a linear transmit architecture offers the handset designer flexibility to select from a range of Power Amplifiers, offering cost and performance trades.
"We are receiving a great deal of interest in all our products that make up the Sereno family," stated Jim Benefer, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. "While the QS1000 represents the first product to go into volume production we fully expect to see all of our radios ramping to production as each respective market continues to gain momentum. Not only are we seeing strong interest from mobile phones manufacturers but since our GSM transceivers are able to tune across all four GSM bands, we are also seeing interest from GSM infrastructure companies who are looking to reduce the number of radios they employ in their BTS."
Quorum's proprietary transceiver technology enables vastly different radio technologies to be integrated into a single-chip. In addition to the QS1000, the Sereno family includes both the QS2000 and the QS3000. The QS2000 integrates quad-band GSM/GPRS and EGDE capability with 802.11b/g, enabling simultaneous operation of Wi-Fi and cellular. The Sereno QS3000 combines GSM/GPRS/EDGE and 3G HSDPA into a single chip, offering global support for dual mode HEDGE handsets. Utilizing Quorum's multi-mode convergence technology, the QS3000 supports both compressed and uncompressed modes, simplifying network infrastructure support needs, and HSDPA category Ten for even higher speed data access.
About Quorum Systems, Inc.
Quorum Systems is a fabless semiconductor company that develops highly integrated CMOS radio frequency (RF) transceivers. Based in San Diego, California, USA, Quorum has focused on developing key intellectual property that enables multi-band radios to be low cost, low power and high performance. For more information about the company and its products please visit quorumsystems.com.
Source: Quorum Systems, Inc.
CONTACT:
Jim Benefer,
SVP, Marketing & Business Development of Quorum Systems, Inc
+1-858-546-0895
jbenefer@quorumsystems.com
Dave Richardson,
Managing Partner of Impress Public Relations
+1-415-409-1647
dave@impress-pr.com (for Quorum)
Web site: http://quorumsystems.com/
