3G Chip Manufacturers Offered Amnesty, thru Spectra Licensing and France Telecom, for Back Royalties Related to Turbo Codes

date: December 12, 2001

Spectra Licensing Group, the North American licensing agent for France Telecom, announces amnesty for ASIC, equipment manufacturers, and IP Core Providers worldwide on back royalties for Turbo Code implementations. Turbo Codes have been adopted into third generation (3G) wireless standards such as 3GPP (CDMA2000) and 3GPP2 (WCDMA) and as such are an element of a fully compatible 3G chipset.

Amnesty on back royalties will be given for any Turbo Code Licensing Agreement (TCLA) signed before December 31, 2001. With the start of 2002 a nominal fee for back royalties will be due for any agreement signed before March 31. Royalties will be due in full for any agreement signed after the end of March 2002.

France Telecom, Groupe des Ecoles des Telecommunications (GET), and Telediffusion de France (TDF) are holders of a number of key Turbo Code and Turbo Code related patents and have recently launched the Turbo Code Licensing Program (TCLP) to give ASIC, equipment manufacturers, and IP Core Developers access to these patents on a non discriminatory basis.

For manufacturers of 3G chipsets who have already started volume production in order to meet the demand for rollout of 3G networks and products worldwide the amnesty program offers significant savings. According to Erik Johnson, director of marketing for Spectra Licensing, "the amnesty program could result in savings of 100,000 to multi millions of dollars for potential licensees. This is not to say that other Turbo Code chipset makers have nothing to gain by signing a TCLA now. We have worked with France Telecom to insure incentives for customers who are at earlier stages in their development of Turbo Code applications, such as discounts towards future royalty payments for timely signing of the TCLA."

Invented in 1993 at France Telecom Research and Development, by Claude Berrou, Turbo Codes are gaining increasing acceptance as a commercially viable Forward Error Correction (FEC) code for broadband wireless applications. Turbo Codes operate near the Shannon limit, increase bandwidth up to 50%, are power efficient, and typically achieve a 3dB performance gain over other commercially viable Forward Error Correction (FEC) codes. All of these factors have led to Turbo Codes being adopted into 3G standards as well as the recently finalized Direct Video Broadcast (DVB) standard for Return Channel Satellite (DVB-RCS), which enables broadband interactive satellite and television services to be provided.

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