Intel invests in Cambridge Silicon
(02/23/00, 10:44:59 AM EDT) HANNOVER, Germany ? Intel has taken an equity stake in Cambridge Silicon Radio Ltd. (CSR), a U.K. company developing a single-chip Bluetooth interface device.
Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) said the funding from Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel, provides CSR with additional resources to aid its growth by expanding its Bluetooth development and marketing activities. The size of Intel's investment was not disclosed. Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) has taken minority stakes in a number of the promising U.K. startups, including Cambridge Display Technology Ltd. (Cambridge, England) and Bookham Technology Ltd. (Abingdon, England).
CSR has developed what it calls the industry's first interface for the 2.4-GHz Bluetooth short-range data standard to include the RF, baseband and microcontroller on one CMOS chip. The so-called BlueCore-01 is scheduled to ship by mid-year.
"CSR is delighted to have received this investment from Intel Capital," said Phil O'Donovan, managing director of Cambridge Silicon Radio. "It will aid us in our efforts to guarantee the supply of components to our customers, expand our Bluetooth product range and grow our workforce to meet the potential of the Bluetooth market."
Cambridge Silicon Radio demonstrates single-chip Bluetooth radio IC
Semiconductor Business News (02/25/00, 09:16:32 AM EDT) HANNOVER, Germany -- Cambridge Silicon Radio Ltd., at CeBIT 2000 here, demonstrated what it said is the only true single-chip implementation of a Bluetooth wireless system. The British company said the chip will be ready for volume production by the middle of the year.
CSR demonstrated the wireless transfer of text between BlueCore01 ICs embedded inside PC Cards of two notebook PCs. The BlueCore 01 single chip Bluetooth IC uses standard CMOS processes and combines the 2.4-GHz radio, the baseband, the microcontroller and the RAM needed in the Bluetooth radio. Together with an external flash ROM containing the CSR Bluetooth software stack, BluleCore 01 provides a fully compliant Bluetooth system for data and voice communications.
The design is optimized to require very few external RF components to facilitate a rapid design of the motherboard, and therefore the fastest possible time-to-market and lowest overall cost. CSR's goal to produce the smallest, lowest-cost Bluetooth system. Intel Corp. this week made an equity investment in the company (see Feb. 23 story).
"When we announced our plans early in 1999 to develop the first true single-chip Bluetooth system on one CMOS chip, the world was skeptical," said Phil O'Donovan, managing director of Cambridge Silicon Radio. "Now we have reached this milestone -- on schedule -- we imagine that the world will sit up and take notice. Cambridge Silicon Radio has today removed anotherbarrier that had to be crossed before mass adoption of the Bluetooth technology is possible -- that of proving that the true single chip solution, the only solution the will allow the $5 cost goal to be reached, is a commercial reality today. We have achieved this way before the date predicted by many industry analysts." |
