Daniel: About a week ago, Motorola announced that it had the industry's first single chip that could support all major existing wireless standards for wireless including of course CDMA.
corporate-ir.net
Motorola Introduces One Chip To Handle All World Wireless Standards
AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 1, 1999--Motorola (NYSE:MOT) announced today the world's first baseband processor that can execute all major existing wireless standards, including support for CDMA(1), GSM, iDEN, and TDMA wireless devices, as well as satellite based products. The DSP56690 baseband processor, part of Motorola's DigitalDNA™ portfolio for wireless systems, integrates a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) core and an M-CORE™ microcontroller and is capable of delivering the processing performance to complete a modern wireless exchange.
"No other semiconductor manufacturer in the world offers one baseband processor that can handle all of the world's cellular standards," said Mario Rivas, corporate vice president and general manager of the Wireless Subscriber Systems Group. "Manufacturers can now standardize their manufacturing around one smart solution, regardless of the market on which they are currently focused. This makes it much easier for them to scale their production for different standards and different areas of the world as needed."
The DSP56690 baseband processor provides large on-chip ROM memory space and a strong peripheral-set that allow it to be configured to meet the needs of OEM manufacturers around the world.
Motorola designed the DSP56690 to support the rigorous demands of the mid-to-high tier wireless applications, specifically those that take advantage of high data throughput standards like general packet radio service (GPRS) and WAP-enabled microbrowsers. In addition, the device architecture is designed to be scalable to low-tier applications thus providing customers a complete solution for all their wireless platforms. It is expected to take advantage of applications built around new software standards, such as Sun's Java. Utilizing advanced manufacturing technology, the 1.8 volt device builds upon Motorola's extensive experience with dual-core architectures to meet these demands without increasing power consumption.
"Addressing consumers' needs for high speed data access in a wireless environment requires significant investment in engineering. By the end of the year 2000 we expect to see productivity gains across Motorola's handset sector through the incorporation of one standard processor and architecture across our product lines," said Paul Fowler, senior vice president for Motorola's Personal Communications Sector. "The flexible nature of the device provides processing overhead needed to add specialized features and software which differentiate our products in the marketplace."
The DSP56690 design leveraged Motorola's embedded semiconductor leadership to integrate standard cores and highly specialized peripherals on one chip. The bulk of the processing duties are divided between a DSP56600 core running at over 100MHz and a powerful M-CORE M210 32-bit microcontroller operating at over 50 MHz. These two core processors communicate between a unique interface comprised of a shared RAM memory block.
Other features of the DSP56690 Include:
-- Advanced Layer 1 timing module
-- Universal Serial Bus (USB) Module
-- AMPS Accelerator Module
-- Burst-Mode Flash Interface
The DSP56690 is supported by a RAM development device, the DSP56670. Limited samples of the development device and a development board are expected to be available late fourth quarter, 1999. High volume production of the ROM based DSP56690 is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2000.
Assuming that this is a product of superior quality, my question is why would anyone want to limit himself to a single standard such as CDMA?
Thus, while the short-term news on LSI's CDMA chip may be encouraging, I am for the time being skeptical as to just how large its market penetration will become. |
