In an interview with Netease Tech today, Li Liyou, chairman and CEO of Chinese wireless baseband chipset provider Spreadtrum Communications (RCode: SPRD:), said that Spreadtrum could release 40 nm TD-LTE chips by the end of this year. 40 nm chips will offer better performance and lower resource consumption than the 65 nm and 45 nm chips that currently account for most of the market, Li said.

Spreadtrum's new offerings already include chips and solutions suitable for use in smart terminals, but the majority of its offerings are still targeted at non-smartphones. Though most of the company's manufacturing partners are domestic enterprises, some of its chip products, including TD-SCDMA chips, have been used in the supply chains for Samsung and other international manufacturers. Samsung will use Spreadtrum's TD-SCDMA chips in the dual-core operator-customized edition of its Galaxy S2 smartphone for China Mobile (RCode:CHL:), slated for release this month.