RF Micro Devices (RFMD) will work with Taiwan-based MediaTek to create Bluetooth enabled EDGE and GPRS mobile phone reference designs with RFMD's SiW3500.

The SiW3500 is a fully qualified system-on- chip for Bluetooth technology with excellent RF performance and low power consumption. Customers will benefit from the turnkey solution, which reduces development resources and improves time to market. In addition, handsets will be enabled with Bluetooth profiles that allow multimedia applications such as music streaming to Bluetooth stereo headsets.

"RFMD is committed to providing easy-to-integrate solutions to enhance next-generation mobile phones," says Dave Lyon, Vice President of Wireless Connectivity. "This reference design with MediaTek is significant because MediaTek is a growing industry leader driving advanced functionality into handsets, and our collaboration proves Bluetooth technology is increasingly a mainstream application across most categories of mobile phones."

The SiW3500 is a highly integrated, single-chip Bluetooth solution that combines a direct conversion radio modem with an ARM7TDMI processor core, Bluetooth baseband logic and complete protocol software in ROM. All active RF components have been integrated into the CMOS-based IC, making it a complete low-cost solution with a very small footprint.

Founded in 1997 and headquartered at Hsin-Chu Science Park in Taiwan, MediaTek is now the world's largest chipset supplier of CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, CD-RW, Combi, DVD-ReW and DVD player. MediaTek is currently the leading wireless communication chipsets supplier in China.