Hisilicon Technologies Co., Ltd., a chip design house held by telecom-equipment supplier Huawei Technologies Co. of mainland China, recently introduced solutions for smart phones running on Windows Mobile OS ahead of Taiwanese competitor MediaTek Inc.

MediaTek, currently the No.1 supplier of cellphone solutions in China, plans to roll out turnkey solution for 2.75G smart phones in the fourth quarter this year. The company has licensed Windows Mobile 6.5 OS from Microsoft.

Industry watchers point out that the licensing suggests MediaTek wants to shake off the image of supplying solutions to copycat mobile phones. Commenting on Hisilicon`s entry into the market, MediaTek Chairman M.K. Cai said he always welcomes new entrants as the market is quite huge.

Hisilicon announced its “Hisilicon K3″ solution in March this year. The solution is composed of a Hisilicon-designed application processor and a modem chip supplied by Spreadtrum Communications Inc. of mainland China or Infineon Technologies AG of Germany. Their modem chips support Windows Mobile 6.1 OS.

Industry executives point out that Hisilicon K3 is now a blockbusting smart phone solution in China, expected to cause fierce competition between Hisilicon and MediaTek.