At the recent WiMAX Forum member conference in Taipei, Taiwan, Comsys Communication and Signal Processing announced that four leading vendors of RF transceivers have joined the ComMAX ecosystem, a network of partners dedicated to providing ready-to-use system solutions for converged cellular/mobile WiMAX terminals. The recently announced ComMAX evaluation board (EVB) and ComMAX reference design platform will support both NXP’s WiMAX transceiver family UXA234xx and Maxim Integrated Products’ MAX2839 WiMAX 802.16e radio transceivers for mobile WiMAX, and both the POLARIS 3 Total Radio GSM/EDGE radio transceiver from RF Micro Devices and the Helios 3 GSM/EDGE RF transceiver subsystem from Skyworks for GSM/EDGE.

ComMAX reference design platforms are built around Comsys’ ComMAX multimode baseband processors. While ComMAX EVB is a modular platform that uses the full capabilities of the ComMAX processor and other RF devices with ability to develop applications software, the ComMAX reference design platform is designed to provide handset vendors, OEMs and ODMs with the most rapid development path and a fast time to market with a fully operational multimode mobile WiMAX/cellular form factor design solution.

The ComMAX Ecosystem is a network of companies whose products and systems are compatible with Comsys baseband processors. In addition to the RF transceiver vendors, ecosystem members include leading vendors of components such as: RF PA, PMIC, memories, application processors and software applications, who are keen to use the ComMAX platform for realising their solutions.

“Comsys is the only vendor to have designed a solution that supports coexistence of GSM with WiMAX,” said Avi Sharon, product manager at Comsys. “Our customers now have the opportunity to be among the first to market with a converged mobile WiMAX handset that combines the ComMAX processor with a choice of RF chipsets and takes away the hassle involved with coexistence. Over the coming months we will be announcing further members in the ComMAX Ecosystem, and invite other chipset and software vendors for handset and mobile terminals to join us”.