NTT DOCOMO, NEC, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Fujitsu Limited announced today that they are making progress with their joint development of "LTE-PF", a mobile-terminal platform based on Long Term Evolution (LTE), a coming mobile communication standard for super-fast downlinks above 100 Mbps and uplinks above 50 Mbps.

The four companies have completed the development of an LTE-PF chipset engineering sample and are now evaluating its main functions. The sample will be exhibited at the NTT Group stand at ITU Telecom World 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland from October 5 to 9 and the DOCOMO stand at CEATEC JAPAN 2009 at Makuhari Messe, Chiba Prefecture, Japan from October 6 to 10.

LTE-PF is a core system comprising software for baseband processing and other basic functions in mobile communication devices (see chart). The platform's technology is expected to be licensed in mobile phone markets worldwide, where its adoption as a common platform will free manufacturers of mobile phones and chipsets from having to develop proprietary technologies for basic functions. As a result, manufacturers will get products to market faster and at lower costs, and will be able to concentrate more resources on the development of enhanced lineups of unique products.

The LTE protocol on which LTE-PF is based is currently being standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Seamless hand-over is possible between LTE and the current third-generation (3G) standards W-CDMA and GSM, meaning that users would be unaware of switching networks even while using their phones.