Feb 24, 2011 13:06 GMT  ·  By

Asus and Marvell have announced that they have signed an agreement to improve the mass-market availability of TD-SDCMA smartphones.

Marvell is one of the leaders in semiconductor manufacturing and integrated silicon solutions, largely known for its XScale chipsets.

TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) is only available in China as an alternative to WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access).

To emphasize the support for China's WCDMA standard, Asus has introduced two new smartphones, the Asus T10 and T20, both powered by Marvell's PXA920 platform.

According to the chipset manufacturer, the PXA920 is the industry's first single-chip TD-SCDMA solution especially designed for mass market smartphones.

I am proud of the leading role Marvell has played in the development of the TD-SCDMA standard, and I am particularly excited to see the launch of the ASUS TD smartphone with the addition of mobile gaming and mobile TV features all in one device, a true breakthrough in mobile telephone technology,” said Weili Dai, Marvell's co-founder. ‬

The new partnership allows Asus to build thinner and lighter TD-SCDMA handsets without compromising on performance, thanks to Marvell’s single-chip PXA920 platform.

In addition, Asus has also announced that it has chosen Marvell's Avastar 88W8787 chipset to enable 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0 and FM in its new TD-SCDMA smartphones.

China is known for its prohibitive policy over the Wi-Fi standard and uses its own WAPI (WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure) standard. Although it was allegedly designed to operate on top of WiFi, compatibility with the security protocol used by the 802.11 wireless networking standard developed by the IEEE is in dispute.

However, it seems that both Asus T10 and T20 smartphones are able to provide consumers excellent Wi-Fi connectivity, along with quality mobile gaming and mobile TV experience, which is very popular in Asia.

No prices have been disclosed for either of the devices, but Asus has mentioned that they will be both available “at an attractive price point”.