MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- CEVA, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEVA); (LSE: CVA), the leading licensor of silicon intellectual property (SIP) platform solutions and DSP cores, announced today that Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD), a leading fabless semiconductor provider in China with advanced technology in 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards, has licensed the CEVA-XC DSP processor for its LTE baseband processor designs. This latest agreement extends the two companies' long-term strategic partnership, which spans a broad range of 2G, 3G and now 4G wireless communication standards.

TD-LTE is the fourth-generation (4G) wireless standard being deployed by the world's largest cellular operator, China Mobile, following on from the deployment of the China homegrown 3G standard, TD-SCDMA. Spreadtrum is a leading baseband player in the TD-SCDMA and GSM markets.

"The CEVA-XC DSP's combination of performance, scalability and low-power underpinned our decision to partner with CEVA for our multi-mode LTE products," said Dr. Leo Li, president and CEO of Spreadtrum Communications. "CEVA's technology combined with its development tools and engineering support play a key role in LTE deployment."

"We are delighted to expand our partnership with Spreadtrum for the emerging TD-LTE market." said Gideon Wertheizer, CEO of CEVA. "The combination of Spreadtrum's world-class expertise in wireless communications with our industry-leading CEVA-XC DSP will enable Spreadtrum to build on their strong success in 2G and 3G and become a leading player in the Chinese 4G market."

CEVA-XC is a high-performance, scalable, low-power communication DSP designed specifically to overcome the stringent power consumption, time-to-market and cost constraints associated with developing high-performance multi-mode solutions. It supports multiple air interfaces for various applications such as multi-mode cellular baseband, connectivity, digital broadcast and smart grid.

CEVA's industry-leading DSP cores power many of the world's leading wireless semiconductors, enabling unrivalled power consumption, performance and cost efficiencies in 2G / 3G / 4G solutions. CEVA has more than 35 cellular baseband design wins to date, including more than 15 design wins for LTE, targeting a wide range of handset, mobile broadband and wireless infrastructure applications. In total, more than 2 billion CEVA-powered cellular baseband processors have shipped.

About Spreadtrum

Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; "Spreadtrum") is a fabless semiconductor company that develops mobile chipset platforms for smartphones, feature phones and other consumer electronics products, supporting 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards.  Spreadtrum's solutions combine its highly integrated, power-efficient chipsets with customizable software and reference designs in a complete turnkey platform, enabling customers to achieve faster design cycles with a lower development cost.  Spreadtrum's customers include global and China-based manufacturers developing mobile products for consumers in China and emerging markets around the world.  For more information, visit www.spreadtrum.com.

About CEVA, Inc.

CEVA is the world's leading licensor of silicon intellectual property (SIP) DSP cores and platform solutions for the mobile handset, portable and consumer electronics markets. CEVA's IP portfolio includes comprehensive technologies for cellular baseband (2G / 3G / 4G), multimedia (HD video, Image Signal Processing (ISP) and HD audio), voice over packet (VoP), Bluetooth, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA). In 2011, CEVA's IP was shipped in over 1 billion devices, powering handsets from 7 out of the top 8 handset OEMs, including Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony and ZTE. Today, more than 40% of handsets shipped worldwide are powered by a CEVA DSP core. For more information, visit ceva-dsp.com. Follow CEVA on twitter at www.twitter.com/cevadsp.

SOURCE CEVA, Inc.