February 20, 2010 - Beceem Communications, a leading provider of 4G chips, announced recently the future availability of the BCS500 chip that integrates 4G LTE/WiMAX technology, and redefines the possibilities and performance of 4G devices.

“With our 4G-LTE/WiMAX chip that will support up to 150Mbps downlink speeds, we once again believe we are setting the gold standard for how 4G terminals should work with any technology, network or configuration,” said Lars Johnsson, Vice President of Marketing for Beceem Communications. “Our BCS500 will end the 4G debate by connecting to any 4G LTE or WiMAX network with seamless roaming, and switching between TDD and FDD configuration as needed, freeing operators from concerns how best to utilize their available spectrum assets.”

The BCS500 multi-mode chip will support the latest revisions of the IEEE 802.16 standard, namely 16e and 16m, as well as the 3GPP-LTE standard, based on Release 8 specifications. It is the only device chip to support UE Class 4 capabilities. In addition, it will support both TDD and FDD configurations for LTE and IEEE 802.16m, even enabling real-time band/channel reconfiguration through a unique multi-mode “autosense” feature that automatically detects the network type.

“This advancement of Beceem’s 4G chipset dramatically helps the entire ecosystem by adding flexibility to network planning, equipment deployment and utilization, device manufacturing, and much more,” said Caroline Gabriel, Research Director, Rethink Research Associates, a thought leader in quadruple play and emerging wireless technologies. “The BCS500 chip solution will be an industry ‘game changer’ in terms of the interoperability that it enables, and extends Beceem’s current market and technology leadership.”

The BCS500 is expected to be sampling to customers in Q4/2010 and to be available for mass production in Q2/2011