A multi-mode mobile phone that can automatically switch to a Chinese home-grown 3G (third generation) telephony or several other standards will go into mass production at the end of this year.

That would give a much-needed leg-up to the development of China's TD-SCDMA, which has been playing catch-up with rival foreign standards WCDMA and CDMA2000.

NXP Semiconductors, the former chip unit of Philips, and T3G Technology, a joint venture between NXP, Samsung, Motorola and China's Datang Mobile, have developed a chip for such phones.

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"We expect the mass production of the multi-mode phones to begin in December this year," Adrian Chu, vice-president of NXP China, told China Daily yesterday.

An automatic switchover between TD-SCDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE standards is crucial as it ensures subscribers can continue using less advanced mobile phone services like GSM, GPRS and EDGE during the early stages of 3G roll-outs.

That's a major breakthrough for TD-SCDMA as the lack of such phones has been the biggest bottleneck thwarting the development of the Chinese standard, said Zhang Daijun, chief technology officer of T3G.

China Mobile is widely expected to start procuring TD-SCDMA phones in October, with some estimating the volume to be around 2 million units.

Currently, T3G provides chips to its parents.

"In October, you will also see some domestic makers announce using our chips for the multi-mode TD-SCDMA phones," Zhang said.