Bluetooth Technology Grabs Center Stage at CEATEC Japan 2000
October 30, 2000 (TOKYO) -- Bluetooth was by far the main focus of attention at the CEATEC Japan 2000, which ran from Oct. 3 through Oct. 7 at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba prefecture.
CEATEC, which stands for "Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies -- Providing Image, Information and Communications," is an industry showcase event encompassing the former "Electronics Show" and "COM JAPAN" exhibitions. The scope of the event covers a wide range of fields -- from consumer products and communications equipment as well as industrial machines, electronic devices and components.
The CEATEC event site was broadly split into three areas, a "Living Stage" where consumer and household products were on show; a "Business Stage" for workplace-related products; and an "Industry Stage" for electronic components and devices. Bluetooth was prominent in the three areas, and industry observers saw crowds of people jostling to get a look at the Bluetooth products at the show. Bluetooth is a new short-range (up to around a range of 10m) wireless technology for electronic/electrical devices.
Head-Mounted Audio Player
At both the Living Stage and the Business Stage, live demonstrations featured devices using Bluetooth to exchange data, music and moving images with each other. Most of the Bluetooth devices on show were related in some way to cellular phones.
Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. stood out as the only company displaying a personal handyphone system (PHS) handset with a built-in Bluetooth interface. Sanyo's PHS phone was shown using Bluetooth in action. A small digital camera was first attached to the phone, and then the pictures were transmitted, via Bluetooth, directly to a printer.
The TU-KA group exhibited two new devices featuring built-in Bluetooth interfaces. One was a head-mounted audio player and the other was a mobile phone headset. Both devices require a special "Bluetooth adapter" to be fitted to the wearer's mobile phone. If a user is listening to the audio player and the phone receives an incoming call, then the headphones can be set to either ring or to vibrate to notify the wearer of the call. Bluetooth interfaces are still costly, so the price of a two-piece set -- a headset and an adapter unit -- is in excess of 10,000 yen. (108.32 yen = US$1)
Bluetooth for Video-Conferencing
Apart from the mobile phone products, another Bluetooth talking point at CEATEC was a new service proposed by Kenwood Corp. It would allow the company's "InfoVendor" (photo) mobile device to receive data, via Bluetooth, even when used outdoors. One of Kenwood's event staff explained that if Bluetooth base stations are set up around cities, then mobile phones would be unnecessary, and would be tantamount to a direct challenge to operators of existing mobile phone services.
A successful implementation of Kenwood's plan would entail other firms getting involved, and the company is calling on them to do so. As a start, Kenwood would like the service to be offered in limited areas such as retail outlets, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, public facilities and amusement parks.
Toshiba Corp. exhibited an LCD projector equipped with a Bluetooth PC Card. Before the product is launched commercially Toshiba intends to alter the design so that the Bluetooth interface is actually built into the unit itself. The scheduled date for the projector's market entry is around February 2001.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. used the CEATEC event to demonstrate how PCs, linked together via Bluetooth, could be used to transmit video images. A digital camera was connected to the USB jack of one of the computers and the video footage captured was sent to another PC by means of Bluetooth PC Cards on both PCs. One possible application for the technology is in video-conferencing.
Sharp Corp. demonstrated a Bluetooth wireless linkup between a "Zaurus" PDA device and a PC. It also said that the same technique could be employed to connect between other devices, like mobile phones and Sharp's own integrated VCR units with a video camera.
Variety of Bluetooth Interface Modules on Display
In contrast to all the prototype electronic devices on show at the exhibition, most of the Bluetooth interfaces displayed at CEATEC were essentially final products, soon to be launched commercially. Six firms exhibited these Bluetooth modules, which in most cases will be incorporated into the devices of other makers.
The interface from Matsushita Electronic Components Co., Ltd. was only a mockup, but those from the other five exhibitors, including Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics Industries Ltd., were shown in action transmitting audio and text data.
All of the manufacturers plan to start shipping sample products around November. The final market prices for the interfaces -- which consist of RF circuits, base band signal processing circuits, flash EEPROMs, quartz crystal oscillators and antennas -- are expected to be several tens of thousand of yen per module.
Of the six companies' interface products, Murata Mfg.'s was the one that attracted by far the most attention. It was shown working (photo) in a multi-point connection (pico-net) configuration. Several devices were able to send data to each other simultaneously. Also, Murata's module was 25 percent to 50 percent smaller than those of most of the other exhibitors. This compact size was made possible by employing a circuit board using low temperature cofired ceramics (LTCC) technology and by incorporating passive components into the board itself.
The interface module from Matsushita-Kotobuki also contains an LTCC circuit board and its module's package was a further 20 percent more compact than Murata's product. However, it was not shown working in a multi-point connection setup.
Testing Interference Problems Encountered with Wireless LANs
Also, CEATEC saw some new ideas for where Bluetooth antennas can be mounted. One proposal was for the antenna to be built into the body or casing of the module itself, while another was for it to be mounted on the circuit board instead.
The interface module from Matsushita-Kotobuki had the antenna built into the body. Murata and TDK Corp., meanwhile, have developed antennas for their products that were mounted on the board. Murata's new interface antenna has been designed primarily with notebook PCs in mind.
On the other hand, TDK has developed two versions of its antenna for mounting on boards in smaller devices, such as mobile phones.
Sony Tektronix Corp. performed a test (photo) looking at interference problems between Bluetooth devices and wireless LANs (IEEE802.11b) in the 2.4GHz waveband, and the result pointed to bad news. Compared with when Bluetooth was working unimpeded, its data transmission speed dropped by as much as 20 percent -- to between 200kbps and 400kbps -- when the wireless LAN was being used to transfer data at the same time.
(Nikkei Electronics) |
