GCT Semiconductor Announces the Industry's First Single-Chip Solution Supporting Both Mobile WiMAX IEEE 802.16e Wave 2 and WiFi 802.11 b/g

- GCT Semiconductor, a leading supplier of Mobile WiMAX solutions to the global market, today announced the world's first highly integrated single-chip solution, GDM7215, supporting mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e WAVE 2) and WiFi (802.11b/g). GDM7215 implements mobile WiMAX RF/MAC/PHY and WiFi RF/MAC/PHY on a monolithic die. This solution is being demonstrated on an Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) with WiMAX and WiFi connectivity during the CTIA wireless event at the Las Vegas Convention Center, in GCT's meeting room MR-789 in Hall C5. Samples are now being provided to alpha customers and production will begin in the third quarter of this year.

GDM7215 supports multimode wireless connectivity with its on-chip RF transceivers, allowing seamless broadband and local wireless roaming. Based on GCT's industry-proven CMOS RF technology, the new GDM7215 integrates WiMAX and WiFi radios, a high performance ARM9 RISC processor along with a 32-bit uniscalar DSP, and a full range of advanced interfaces for network, storage, and audio/visual device applications.

"Last fall GCT announced the world¡¯s first single-chip solution for 2.5GHz Wave 2 Mobile WiMAX," commented Dr. Kyeongho (KH) Lee, President and CEO of GCT Semiconductor. "Today we are announcing the next device in our WiMAX roadmap which furthers our leadership position by enabling WiFi/WiMAX dual-mode connectivity in an easy to implement solution. We are pleased to be the first to offer such a product with complete WiMAX and WiFi functionality fully integrated in a single monolithic silicon die. We expect this solution will replace WiFi-only solutions currently in use for handhelds, laptops, MIDs and UMPCs; and will greatly contribute to the market expansion of Mobile WiMAX embedded devices."

"GCT Semiconductor's dual mode WiFi/WiMAX chip will allow mobile device users to take advantage of both WiFi local area networks and the XOHM WiMAX network while on the go,"said Bin Shen, Vice President of Product Management and Partnership Development at Sprint's XOHM business unit. "By developing a single chip that supports both of these complementary wireless technologies, GCT is enhancing the convenience, affordability, and versatility of embedded devices which is beneficial to both device makers and end users."

GDM7215 supports all the essential features of mobile WiMAX for the 2 GHz band, including implementation of MISO (two receivers and a single transmitter) and Category-4 H-ARQ (Hybrid automatic repeat-request). It also fully supports WiFi (802.11 b/g) functionality including advanced power management and coexistence support. Due to its optimized design and unique architecture, GDM7215 provides a best-in-class solution for power consumption, size, and multi-mode WiFi/WiMAX connectivity. The low power consumption and robust coexistence scheme eases development of highly compact modules needed by portable and mobile applications.

GDM7215 was designed to be an easy (hardware and software) upgrade for GDM7205 which is GCT's WiMAX-only (2.5GHz IEEE 802.16e WAVE 2) single-chip device that was announced in September 2007 and is now in production. With proper planning, GDM7215 can fit on the same footprint used for GDM7205 and allow ODMs/OEMs to easily enhance their designs to support WiMAX/WiFi dual operation. GDM7215 also supports 16 bit memory, SDIO and USB2.0 interfaces.

About GCT Semiconductor, Inc.

GCT Semiconductor is a leading fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops and markets innovative SOC devices for the mobile handset and emerging mobile wireless broadband industries. With its proven CMOS radio frequency (RF), wireless modem technology and SOC expertise, GCT provides state-of-the-art CMOS single-chip mobile WiMAX solutions, CMOS single-chip mobile TV solutions, and highly-integrated cellular CMOS RF transceivers. GCT empowers 3G and 4G mobile device manufacturers by reducing BOM cost, lowering power consumption and minimizing size. For more information, please visit www.gctsemi.com.