Philips To Develop ASICs For Flarion's Broadband Mobile System
By Mark Long -- e-inSITE, 11/20/2001
Philips Semiconductors has announced that it will be designing and manufacturing low-power ASICs that will offer support for Flarion's Flash-OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Modulation) mobile communications system. According to Flarion CTO Rajiv Laroia, the wideband spread spectrum technology will allow users to access the Internet at vehicular speeds, while achieving the same experience as if they were at their business or home and without requiring any changes to the IP protocol, applications, devices, or content.
Destined for deployment in laptop computers, PDAs, and smart phones, the new ASICs from Philips, which will process transmit and receive signals at speeds of up to 3 Mbit/sec, are scheduled to become available in early 2002, with Flash-OFDM mobile PC cards expected to make their debut in 4Q02.
Flarion's Flash-OFDM mobile communication system is an IP-based air interface for distributing broadband mobile data and voice communications that is based on technology originally developed by Bell Labs. Last month, Flarion announced that the company had raised $45 Million in Series B Funding for its low-cost mobile communications network technology, including equity financing from Cisco Systems and Pequot Capital.
"The Flash-OFDM technology has the potential to unwire devices and offer all-packet connectivity to the Internet, unlike circuit-switched technologies," said Yankee Group senior wireless analyst Phil Marshall. "Low cost, high-speed chipsets that support a wide range of devices will help foster the demand for mobile data services and create economies of scale."
Flarion claims that its mobile broadband technology incorporates innovations on three levels: at the airlink/MAC layer, the equipment/infrastructure level and in the network/system design. Flash-OFDM technology uses multiple tones and fast hopping to spread signals over a given band of spectrum. The system's bandwidth can be scaled in increments of 1.25 MHz or 5 MHz and the format is also reportedly tolerant of both multipath and high-speed Doppler.
Flarion considers its technology to be a viable alternative to the circuit-switched, hierarchical architecture of conventional 3G mobile network designs. The company reports that OFDM does not generate interference between users in the same cell, while interference from users operating in adjacent cells is averaged effectively by the use of hopping patterns. The end result, claims Flarion, is that the OFDM airlink can enable a 3x higher spectral efficiency than a conventional CDMA 3G airlink.
e-insite.net |
