Moto's 2.5G entry challenges TI,
Intel in wireless
By Patrick Mannion
EE Times
(09/17/01, 4:22 p.m. EST)
SAN DIEGO — Motorola's Semiconductor Products
Sector announced Monday (Sept. 17) a
comprehensive 2.5-generation Global System for
Mobile Communications/General Packet Radio
Service (GSM/GPRS) platform for the open market.
The move sets the stage for what looks to be an
epic battle among Motorola, Texas Instruments
Inc. (TI) and Intel Corp. for the heart and soul of
the wireless handset designer.
Now equipped with a digital signal
processor/ARM-based baseband processor and a
radio-frequency front end to support its Dragonball
line of ARM-based applications processors,
Motorola has set itself up as a direct competitor to
platform-industry leader TI, with its Open
Multimedia Applications Processor (Omap)
architecture.
Omap also uses the ARM processor, but in combination with Texas
Instruments' own C55x DSPs and advanced TCS-2100 RF front end.
Both TI and Motorola will need all their RF and DSP expertise to fend
off Intel, with its much publicized Personal Internet Client Architecture
(PCA). For that, Intel is currently pushing its StrongARM processor as
it awaits advanced Xscale silicon for applications processing and Micro
Signal Architecture silicon for the DSP communications end.
While Intel has significant analog expertise, its RF front-end history
pales in comparison with that of TI and Motorola. Nonetheless, Intel
sees its StrataFlash technology as a key differentiator as it prepares
to fight for its share of a wireless semiconductor market that Gartner
Dataquest expects to reach $35 billion in 2004. The research firm sees
more than 480 million GSM/GPRS handsets in production by 2005.
Playing catch-up
Another differentiator Intel has been promoting is its separation of the
communications portion of the handset from the applications
processing in an effort to speed Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) type approval and applications development. But that does
nothing more than "muddy the waters," a TI spokesperson said,
claiming that TI also offers separation of the two for the same reason
— as does Motorola.
While all have their respective merits, Motorola is a long way behind
both TI and Intel in terms of partners, development groups and, most
important, customers. However, Ed Valdez, of the wireless and mobile
systems division at Motorola, said the company will announce two
customers before the year is out.
The move by Motorola follows through on its surprise announcement in
July of a change in strategy that would see it leverage its internal
technology for the merchant marketplace for both 2.5G and
third-generation (3G) platforms. The new strategy represents a
turning point for Motorola, which until now has supplied only internal
customers — and has supplied them only with point solutions, vs.
total system solutions.
The system solution Intel announced today targets GSM and GPRS
applications but also enables faster Enhanced Data Rates for GSM
Evolution (Edge) receive mode. It supports two dual-band
configurations for regional customization — either 900/1,800 MHz or
850/1,900 MHz — and includes four main ICs.
At the heart of what the company is calling the 2.5G Innovative
Convergence Platform is a dual-core baseband processor IC with an
integrated DSP-56600 and ARM7 TDMI that use the latest
0.13-micron, copper-based technology. Embedded memory minimizes
the need for external flash, removes the SRAM used in current
platforms and reduces system power consumption by minimizing
external accesses, the company said.
The front end uses Motorola's mainstream RF BiCMOS technology, but
combined with a single silicon-germanium:carbon process step.
For power management and audio, the platform uses the company's
SmartMOS 5 technology, which is a medium-voltage mixed-signal
BiCMOS process that allows the integration of analog circuitry,
intelligent digital control and power devices. The power amplifier
module uses indium gallium phosphide heterojunction bipolar transistor
technology to integrate both PAs — along with the antenna switch
harmonic filters, couplers and power-detection circuitry.
Though Motorola has yet to promote its solution as a complete
applications-to-communications architecture provider, the parallels
between its Dragonball-GPRS combination, Omap and PCA are
undeniable, with Motorola only lacking an all-encompassing
nomenclature.
"We're definitely promoting the use of Dragonball with our platform,"
said Valdez, "and there are many optimizations that can be made
between the two."
With a seven-year history of supplying chip set solutions for wireless,
TI is currently the undisputed leader for both DSP and analog, with 58
percent of the DSP market alone, according to the latest figures from
Forward Concepts.
TI recently announced that the newly formed Ericsson Mobile
Platforms (EMP) division has chosen TI's chip set as its foundation.
That doesn't bother Valdez, however. "They're [EMP] only validating
our strategy of opting for a full platform solution because of the
dynamics of the industry, such as consolidation and partnerships."
Valdez claims the upper hand with "one-stop shopping with the chip
set, the wireless systems expertise, and [because] we're the only
semiconductor supplier that also happens to build phones for a living."
Valdez is relying on Motorola's 70 years of wireless, 50 years of
semiconductor and 20 years of cellular experience to support an
architecture "that dramatically reduces the parts count for a
GSM/GPRS platform to 125 components from the industry-standard
225," he said.
Motorola claims other advantages for its platform, including full FCC
type approval support. "No other supplier is capable of providing
support all the way to certification for the customers' own phones,"
said Valdez. "We're also leveraging our first-to-market GPRS software
stack, which is in its third life cycle, so it's ruggedized and mature and
certified," he said.
However, Valdez doesn't see product sampling until the first quarter of
next year, with production to customers in the second half of next
year.
Clash of the titans
Motorola is coming relatively late to a market segment in which both
TI and Intel have been making a large number of technology,
partnership, customer and development announcements — especially
in the last two months.
Earlier this year, TI announced its TRF6150 direct-conversion RF front
end. It later built on that by integrating it with its TBB2100 dual-core
digital baseband (C54x/ARM), TWL3014 analog baseband,
power-management functions and a GPRS/GSM protocol stack to form
the TCS2100 solution. Targeting low-end applications, the TCS2100
was then further integrated with another ARM, acting as a dedicated
applications processor to form the Omap710. That supports
higher-level operating systems (OSes) for 2.5G applications.
The 710 is code-compatible with the Omap1510, which supports
multimedia processing functions and which can be separately
developed with the TCS2100.
The latter point is crucial, as it contradicts Intel's claim that TI's
Omap architecture doesn't allow separate FCC type approval of the
communications section (TCS2100) and the applications section
(Omap1510) for 2.5 and 3G applications.
However, according to an Intel spokesperson, TI is still coming at the
handheld market from the telecom side and therefore lacks the
applications-development expertise. That expertise is needed, said
Intel, in order to develop enough applications to see what finally
sticks and forms the badly needed "killer application." Intel draws the
PC/Windows analogy to make its point.
The to and fro between Intel and TI has recently reached new levels,
with both companies making a string of related announcements. TI,
Intel and Motorola collectively announced support in July for Palm OS,
while TI and Intel have each announced developer groups around their
respective platforms in the last three weeks.
Along with Ericsson, TI has been supported publicly by Nokia, Sony,
Sendo and HCT, and by other OSes such as Symbian's Epoc, Windows
CE and Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). Developers include Beatnik,
PacketVideo and RealNetworks on the applications side, and
Authentec, Ntru, SafeNet and Whitecell on the security end.
Intel's differentiation has come from its focus on the personal digital
assistant (PDA) side, with recent alignments, for instance, with
Hewlett-Packard for its full Jornada line (the Jornada's low-end
500-Series devices were supported by Hitachi's SH processor). Intel
also captured Compaq's iPAQ. The marriage of HP and Compaq leaves
the existence of two PDA lines open to question.
"Everyone we talk to in this industry talks about data," said Intel's
spokesperson. "We have a network of over 200 members and 300
tools that already has and will continue to make an impact. TI is only
approaching this from the perspective of a phone."
On the applications and developer side, Intel has similar alignments to
TI, and both have toured extensively in Asia to capture hardware and
software support, again with extensive overlap. OS support includes
both Palm and Epoc, with no word to date on a Microsoft alignment.
'Nine-month lead'
All the recent moves by Intel and TI don't bother Valdez. "We have a
nine-month lead on the industry for GPRS," he said.
"We've shipped to carriers that have gotten certified all the way with
no wavering of specification. Besides that, we also have our own
in-house tool chain [which includes a full radio test environment.] This
saves customers from having to contract out to a third-party
provider," Valdez said. "Again, one-stop shopping. Also, we have J2ME
leadership as we were the ones Sun [Microsystems Inc.] chose to
drive the wireless spec for that — [we] were first to market."
With its overall approach, Motorola sees itself more closely aligned
with Intel in terms of the complete comms/apps separation concept.
"Once you change anything in an integrated radio modem design, you
have to recertify it with your carriers," said Valdez, "and separating
out those functions really helps time-to-market when manufacturers
want to scale the applications upward."
As for adding DSP functionality up front for application/multimedia
processing, Valdez said, "We're waiting [for] 3G before we see the
need."
Both TI and Motorola fail to recognize Intel's claimed StrataFlash
advantage.
"With the dynamics of the flash memory prices falling," said Valdez, "a
lot of customers said they prefer the flexibility of being able to
manage the dynamics of the industry and keep their external memory
prices separate from the baseband. So we see that as an advantage
for us." |
