Bluetooth product developers exploring cost, integration options
ebnews.com
Oct 28, 2000
By Andrew MacLellan
Electronic Buyers' News
(10/27/00, 09:01:48 PM EST)
EDINBURGH, Scotland -- The emerging market for Bluetooth-enabled electronics
is leading to a new round of cost and integration issues that will determine
how and at what rate OEMs build the wireless-communications standard into
their products.
Though they're maintaining a united front in developing the standard,
developers are beginning to pursue divergent paths when crafting Bluetooth
designs for specific applications. The result is an ocean of product and
implementation options, all of which must work in concert.
"There's no one-size-fits-all solution for Bluetooth," said Bob Tait,
Bluetooth business development manager at Parthus Technologies plc, Dublin,
Ireland. "You can have platforms that require a one-chip solution, and you
can have platforms that require a zero-chip solution."
Bluetooth is a short-haul communication standard that aims to wirelessly
connect a huge range of electronic devices. The 1-Mbit/s data rate is
significantly slower than wired connections such as 10/100Base-T, but
cheaper and cleaner to install, according to proponents.
Moreover, unlike a number of other communications initiatives that have
languished in committee, Bluetooth is on a fast track and is expected to
move from concept to product in just a few years. Observers say this is
partly because the wireless standard should give hundreds of OEMs a new way
to differentiate their products.
With relatively few parts -- an antenna, radio, baseband processor, memory,
and interface -- developers can implement Bluetooth in cell phones, PCs,
keyboards, printers, digital cameras, and even automotive applications. The
first wave of products is expected to reach market before the end of the
year. By 2003, nearly 200 million Bluetooth nodes are expected in a variety
of devices, rising to more than 1.1 billion in 2005, according to Micrologic
Research, Phoenix.
With those numbers in front of them, developers will meet no fewer than half
a dozen times in the next few months in an effort to clamber over the
standard's remaining hurdles. Speaking at a conference here this week to
discuss their progress, designers said the cost per Bluetooth implementation
has been driven to less than $10. While an improvement, this is still
considerably more than the generally agreed upon sweet spot of $5 per
module, signaling that significant work remains.
In the PC sector, which is expected to constitute 21% of the Bluetooth
market, vendors have long been targeting a cost of $5 per module. However,
PC peripherals like mice and keyboards are unlikely to support such a cost
structure, causing the Bluetooth community to explore other integration
opportunities.
"Some of the $5 solutions will not be suitable for what you need, because
you may have a different architecture or different system requirements,"
said Conrad Maxwell, manager of product and technology planning at Conexant
Systems Inc., Newport Beach, Calif.
This is especially true of cell phones, which are expected to account for
42% -- or the early majority -- of Bluetooth sales. The precipitous drop in
the price of basic wireless handsets, combined with the seeming reluctance
of consumers to flock to higher-end Internet-enabled cell phones, is leading
Bluetooth vendors to adopt a conservative cost-per-module target |
