GCT Semiconductor Drives Real Market for Bluetooth Audio Headphones
November 9, 2004 - San Jose, CA - GCT Semiconductor, Inc., a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor solutions for wireless communications, today announced that its Bluetooth stereo headphone production-ready reference design is available for immediate branding, to supply anticipated consumer demand during the upcoming holiday season. Several ODM partners have implemented Bluetooth stereo headphones incorporating GCT's complete reference design. With multiple reference design sources to choose from, OEM customers are able to significantly reduce their time-to-market and manufacturing costs and still offer differentiating end-product features.
GCT's innovative Bluetooth stereo solution gives consumers the freedom to enjoy high-quality music anywhere, with the added convenience of being able to make and receive mobile phone calls through the same stereo headphones. In-fact, listeners can enjoy music without the worry of missing a phone call, since the mobile phone's ring tone can be heard in the headphones. To ensure immediate access audio from a wide range of sources, a USB-compliant Bluetooth dongle is also available to provide instant wireless connectivity to stereo headphones.
"The true value proposition for Bluetooth stereo headphones to consumers is the flexibility to use them with a myriad of products that include the Bluetooth connectivity standard, unlike proprietary solutions. For existing devices that have not yet incorporated the newer A/V Bluetooth profiles, an accompanying Bluetooth dongle will be key in the early market phases of Bluetooth stereo headphones," stated Joyce Putscher, director at high-tech market research firm In-Stat/MDR.
Compliant with Bluetooth 1.2 specification, the product's advanced features include SBC, MP3 and WMA audio decoders and a comprehensive suite of Bluetooth profiles, notably including HFP, HSP and A2DP, ensuring interoperability with all major brand GSM mobile phones supporting these profiles. Low power consumption enables longer battery life and advanced interference techniques ensure high quality sound, even in close proximity to a microwave oven or cordless phone operating in the same frequency band. An advantage of the new Bluetooth 1.2 specification is that it incorporates the Fast Connect feature, which eliminates delays in the system if a signal drops, improving the overall quality of the acoustic experience. With Bluetooth-enabled audio headphones, the user can also directly answer a phone call from a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone by simply pressing a switch on the headset.
"GCT is widely successful in consistently identifying the market need for a particular technology, providing solutions that fulfill the need ahead of its competitors, then enabling its ODM partners to quickly deploy these solutions," said Dr. Kyeongho Lee, President and CEO of GCT Semiconductor. "As a result, we repeatedly offer the most competitive solutions in terms of component procurement cost, application development cost, design flexibility, and robust features. We expect to maintain market leadership in the wireless multimedia marketplace by continuing to offer innovative solutions that are attractive to our customers."
This production release of Bluetooth stereo headphone reference design is a significant milestone for GCT and a major benefit for OEMs wishing to bundle headphones with other products or for those who specialize in headphones. GCT's ODM partners offering reference designs include Global Sun Technology, Air2U, and Progressive Devices. This wide range of designs allows OEM customers to select a product that best suits their applications. When this flexibility is combined with the high-quality stereo performance and superior battery life of the GCT solution, OEMs can rapidly bring cost-effective, high-quality Bluetooth stereo headphones to market.
About GCT Semiconductor, Inc.
GCT Semiconductor is a leading fabless semiconductor company that produces innovative integrated circuit solutions for the wireless communications industry. With its proven radio frequency (RF) CMOS and system-on-a-chip (SOC) expertise, GCT provides state-of-the-art single-chip CMOS RF transceivers, mobile digital TV receivers and Mobile WiMAX solutions serving 3G and 4G mobile system manufacturers by reducing BOM cost, lowering power consumption and minimizing total solution size. For more information, please visit www.gctsemi.com.