MediaTek Inc., Taiwan`s No.1 design house by revenue, has begun shipping chips for the China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting (CMMB) mobile phones, showing its ambition to shoot for a share of the mainland Chinese mobile-TV market, which is estimated to have over one million subscribers.

CMMB is one of the mainland`s mobile-TV standards, telecasting TV and radio programming to handheld devices including mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and CMMB gadgets. During the Beijing Olympic Games, the mainland authorities telecasted the games through CMMB system. So far, trial CMMB signal has reached nearly 40 cities across the mainland.

The mainland`s telecom regulators plan to commercialize the telecasting in the second half next year and 100 cities will be under signal coverage. The regulators estimate over one million CMMB-enabled end equipment to be procured in the mainland next year.

The mainland`s retailers estimate around 1.5 million CMMB chips have been delivered in the mainland, with one million of which integrated into mobile phones.

MediaTek has begun shipping CMMB chips including base-band and radio-frequency chips, which have gone into some mobile phones. Revenue from the sales of the chips still commands a low ratio of the company`s total revenue, but the company believes the sales will become significant next year.

Other suppliers of the chips include Innofidei Technology, Telepath Technologies, Siano and other mainland Chinese design houses.

Source:CENS