I&C Technology (www.inctech.co.kr) was established as the first in-house venture start-up of the LG Group in November 1996. A fabless firm specializing in semiconductor chips for mobile phones as well as digital multimedia manufacturing, it s now beginning mass production of (RFIC) Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit and Baseband processors for terrestrial wave DMB as well as DAB. Claiming over 70% of the domestic CI (Common Interface) market for settop boxes, I&C Technology is now being wooed by a raft of system companies. The company's president Park Chang-Il said in an interview with the Korea IT Times, "I&C Technology is highly significant in that it developed RFIC and Baseband processors at the same time in light of the fact that terrestrial wave DMB chips developed to date are divided into RFIC developer and Baseband developer chips." He explained that right now, I&C Technology is mass-producing an RFIC processor and plans to mass produce a Baseband processor in March of this year. I&C Technology's Baseband processor (the "StarDMB1000") has been developed to suit the domestic mobile environment. This product has built-in ADC, a hardwired Modem block, DSP block, and LCD controller, and it has excellent adaptability to various frequency environments through applying HW/SW co-architecture techniques. Plus such features, it is appropriate for use in mobile products by using a low-power consumption paradigm. Since the Baseband's processor electricity consumption (60mW) is excellent, it can be applied for use in mobile phones as well as PMPs, PDAs notebooks and so forth, Mr. Park said. The power consumption of I&C Technology's RFIC processor (the "StarRFT200") is also low and its size is small, and so appropriate for use by major domestic cellular phone models. Mr. Park points out, "The process of digital media convergence is greatly aided by a semiconductor chip such as this." In that respect, he said, "Since I&C Technology has acquired core technologies, we are not only able to cope with technological fusion in a swift manner, but also be price competitive." The company president said that I&C Technology is receiving requests from a raft of system companies thanks to its ability to provide RFIC and Baseband processors at the same time. This year, I&C Technology plans to boost its revenue over the 30- billion won ($27-million) mark with the assistance of the DMB-associated chip. In its early years, the main business of I&C Technology was on-demand semiconductor (ASIC) design. However, in anticipation of convergence in the information technology industry, Mr. Park emphasized that I&C Technology has been investing continuously in chip development for applications such as DMB, DAB, WLAN, and digital audio amplifiers. In particular, he said, "I&C Technology has successfully diversified its business with some products being mass produced. If we can extend this to other products such as out existing Star CI and MP3 Decoder chip, we can expect a great synergy effect." Since 36 out of a total of 46 company staffers are R&D personnel, I&C Technology is truly putting the spurs to its research effort, Mr. Park concluded.