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picoChip has signed a partnership agreement with Korea Telecom (KT) to develop WiBro/WiMAX access points, sometimes called Femtocells or home-base stations. KT is a leader in wireless technology and has launched commercial WiBro service. picoChip's multicore DSP is the industry standard architecture for WiMAX infrastructure, and is also being widely used for WCDMA Femtocells.

Femtocells are small, low-cost base stations, intended to be used in residential or corporate environments where high-speed coverage would otherwise be limited. By enabling cost-effective deployment they allow carriers to complete with UMA or voice-over-Wi-Fi. The idea is increasingly recognised in the 3G community, but as the carrier most advanced in deploying WiBro, KT is the first to develop such a program for WiMAX.

WiBro, the South Korean wireless telecommunications standard, is compatible with WiMAX 802.16e-2005 (mobile WiMAX), and aims to be the technology that delivers personal broadband to consumers around the globe.

The picoChip/KT partnership developments will focus on the recently introduced PC20x family of processors from picoChip. The devices deliver the best MIPS per dollar of any signal processor, and enable a single-chip WiMAX BS PHY with integrated ARM for upper layer protocols. The picoChip platform is flexible and upgradable.

picoChip provides software-defined radio solutions to the key challenges of cost, development time and flexibility for the next generation of wireless systems. The company's multicore processors deliver a world-beating price/performance combination. Uniquely, the company also delivers complete, standard-compliant reference designs for UMTS (HSDPA, upgradable to HSUPA) and WiMAX/WiBro (both 802.16d and 802.16e, with support for AAS and MIMO). WiMAX systems using picoChip are available from Airspan, Intel, Ericsson, Nortel, Marconi and a number of other manufacturers. picoChip technology is also being used to develop other advanced wireless protocols such as UMTS-LTE, 802.20 and TD-SCDMA, and in 4G research.