Atmel, Silicon Wave push Bluetooth integration
By Stephan Ohr and David Lammers
EE Times
(11/08/99, 4:04 p.m. EDT)
SAN JOSE, Calif. Atmel Corp. and Silicon Wave Inc. (San Diego) have joined the growing number of companies rolling silicon for Bluetooth. Atmel is rolling out a multichip module this week that supports the short-range wireless standard, while Silicon Wave will announce what it calls the first silicon for a single-chip Bluetooth radio device.
Atmel's Bluetooth MCM includes a controller, flash memory, RF transceiver and an integrated antenna in a BGA package. Silicon Wave's device integrates a radio, modem and a full synthesizer with an on-chip voltage control oscillator (VCO). The 2.4-GHz transceiver uses a direct conversion architecture.
Bluetooth supports short-distance wireless data transfers between portable computers and cell phones. But advocates envision Bluetooth as the foundation for wireless networks in hotels, airports and convention centers and as being compatible with HomeRF, potentially opening up a high-volume market. Bluetooth's success, its advocates believe, will depend on very low-cost implementations. For its part, Atmel is determined to deliver a complete Bluetooth solution in high volume for less than $17, and Silicon Wave is projecting a $5 cost for its integrated part in a couple of years.
Dale Ford, director of Dataquest Inc.'s semiconductor applications markets, said, "Bluetooth is one area that I am truly excited about. There are 500 members of the Bluetooth consortium, and it is getting a critical mass of support in the industry. As people set up what we call PANs, or personal area networks, Bluetooth will quickly become widespread for connecting digital cellular phones with notebook computers to exchange e-mail, or connecting peripherals such as digital still and digital video cameras."
Rollout sked
David Hytha, vice president of marketing and sales at Silicon Wave, said his company's early devices and supporting software are being shipped in development systems to key customers, including Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd. (Tokyo), TDK Systems Europe Ltd. and other Bluetooth module manufacturers. Wider sampling will begin in February, and full production is expected in May.
Silicon Wave uses a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) BiCMOS technology to integrate the RF and digital components, using an unnamed fab partner in Japan with SOI production capabilities. "We're using one of the 'Big Six' IC companies in Japan as our foundry, and we think we can get to very high volumes very quickly," Hytha said. "Wireless data transfers are going to happen everywhere, but one of the first applications for this device will be to create a wireless link from a PC to a cell phone, to send e-mail. GSM data is taking off in Europe right now."
In the next stage of application, wireless LANs using Bluetooth radio links will become widespread, in part to eliminate the costly wiring that accounts for more than half of the cost of an office or home network, Hytha said. By the end of 2001, Bluetooth modules are expected to sell for about $5 each.
While other companies have highly integrated designs in the works, Silicon Wave claims to be the first to have arrived at a single-chip solution. Silicon Wave has left it to each system integrator to decide whether to integrate the baseband control functions into a separate baseband controller, or perform that function on the host processor. Silicon Wave currently supports the ARM7 controller from ARM Ltd. and the H8 processor from Hitachi Ltd. for baseband control.
Well armed
Richard Bisset, Atmel's marketing director for Bluetooth products, said Atmel is one of the few manufacturers that possesses all of the intellectual property required to execute a Bluetooth design. Atmel's capability includes flash memory as well as RF and baseband, Bisset said.
Atmel will offer a Bluetooth reference design that includes software for the host controller interface (HCI) and Logical Link Control Adapter Protocol (L2CAP), Bisset said. The software stack, available to selected customers, will include Bluetooth-certified RF, link control and link management, he said.
The heart of the Bluetooth module design is the T2901 transceiver chip, developed by Atmel's Temic Semiconductor subsidiary. The transceiver is a modified DECT design, using a closed feedback loop to modulate a voltage-controlled oscillator, Bisset said. This not only puts tight control on frequency, but eliminates many of the off-chip filter components required for in-phase and quadrature modulation techniques. Laptop users report a receive sensitive better than -70 dBm using this design, Bisset said.
Initially, the part will be manufactured with bipolar technology, but Temic plans to utilize BiCMOS with SiGe transistors, according to Bisset. This would enable a single-chip Bluetooth solution with RF, controller and memory on one chip. Bisset is optimistic that this can be introduced in the early part of 2001, and that it can be manufactured and sold for about $5.
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