SPAIN, Barcelona – February 22, 2016 – NTT DOCOMO, INC. and MediaTek today announced a joint effort to drive 5G technology development. The two companies will collaborate on developing new 5G air interface and chipsets required for 5G devices, raising spectrum efficiency and increasing data capacity. MediaTek is one of the major technology companies selected by DOCOMO to contribute expertise and technology innovations needed for supporting the launch of new 5G networks by 2020.

“DOCOMO is excited to work with MediaTek, an innovator with expertise in the technical requirements of 5G,” said Seizo Onoe, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at DOCOMO. “The potential opportunities for 5G to enable people to connect with devices are endless. We’re eager to see our 5G network inspire innovative inventions to benefit technology, life and business.”

MediaTek, a leading cellular baseband solution provider, has a complete modem technology portfolio covering all 2G, 3G and 4G standards. Its WorldMode chipsets allow device makers to serve operators worldwide using a single platform.

“We are pleased to collaborate with DOCOMO on developing the best possible standard as well as user terminals for 5G cellular systems,” said Kevin Jou, Senior Corporate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of MediaTek.  “We plan to use our advanced signal processing and circuit technologies to design solutions that will meet the diverse and stringent requirements posed by 5G in order to ensure a successful service launch in the 2020 time frame.”

NTT DOCOMO and MediaTek plan to implement the transmission experiment in both indoor and outdoor environments in 2017, and carry out new wireless interface and chipsets development from 2018 onwards.