June 19, 2012 – Hod Hasharon, Israel – Altair Semiconductor (http://www.altair-semi.com), a leading developer of ultra-low power, small footprint and high performance 4G LTE chipsets, today announced that its FourGee-3100/6200 chipset successfully completed TD/FDD LTE live handover testing with Rohde & Schwarz, the leading global manufacturer of wireless communications and EMC test and measurement equipment.

The test, which employed Altair’s FourGee™ chipset in an end-user device, successfully enabled seamless communication between different LTE modes, achieving an uninterrupted and continuous data session with low handover latency from a 20MHz TD-LTE channel and a 10MHz FDD channel and back. 

The two companies are presenting a joint demo of their handover capabilities at the Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) Asia Conference on June 18-20th in China.

Altair is the first chipset manufacturer to achieve live TD/FDD LTE handover in commercially available devices. By allowing the two LTE duplex modes to operate interchangeably on the same device, as well as enabling global LTE roaming, this achievement has significant market implications.

“The ramifications of live LTE handover are major, addressing one of the LTE industry’s most desired goals – harmonization of all standard variants. Our baseband portfolio, complemented by our multiband radio chipsets, offer the market's most flexible and global solution," said Eran Eshed, Co-Founder and VP of Marketing at Altair Semiconductor. “Since introducing the industry's first LTE chipset in 2009, Altair has consistently been first to market with introducing numerous important LTE features.”

Altair’s FourGee™ LTE chipset is one of the only commercial solutions supporting both FDD LTE and TD-LTE. The chipset supports all 3GPP Release 9 bands and is deployed for commercial use in numerous LTE markets around the world.

“We are pleased to work with Altair on this exciting development and look forward to the upcoming demo,” said Mr. Michael Altmann, Head of Product Management Mobile Radio Testers of Rohde & Schwarz. “We are committed to providing world-class test solutions for LTE and to help advance real solutions for this rapidly growing market. This demonstration again proofs the capabilities and potential of the R&S CMW500 platform.”