US-based TechnoConcepts has signed an agreement with China Electronics Corporation to collaborate on the development of an emergency response application providing interoperability capabilities for first responders in emergency response situations.

Antonio Turgeon, chairman and CEO of TechnoConcepts, says the product will integrate into existing telecommunications infrastructure and provide this needed, cost-effective, interoperability capability enabling real-time communications between emergency response providers, rather than having to go through conventional dispatch based services.

China Electronics Corporation (CEC), China's largest semiconductor and integrated circuit design conglomerate, is a US$12 billion company that currently manages 16 wholly-funded subsidiaries, 30 share-holding companies, two overseas operations and six listed companies with total assets of CNY 48.6 billion, and more than 34,000 employees.

Through its subsidiaries, CEC has, over the past 10 years, developed the capability of designing, producing and testing of semi-conductors. For the year ended December 31, 2003, CEC achieved an annual output of approximately 1.68 billion integrated circuits, accounting for approximately 13.5% of China's total IC output that year.