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To: Elmer who wrote (135845)	5/22/2001 2:13:30 PM
From: The Duke of URL©	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Does this sound simular to Intel's efforts??? PALO ALTO, Calif. — Taking its first step into the increasingly crowded world of personal digital assistants (PDAs), Agilent's Mobile Information Solutions Unit today will unveil a system-on-chip complete with an ARM920T processor that looks to dramatically increase the processing power of handheld appliances and smart phones. "The PDA suppliers are accepting that they need to move to higher performance," said Dan Croft, marketing manager for the recently formed business unit at Agilent Technologies Inc. "There are so many things they've been wanting to add — a little multimedia, a little imaging, a little richer user interface. [Market leaders] Palm and Handspring have been in the 33-MHz range for most of their life, but they're realizing now that users are expecting a more robust experience." The AAEC-2000 chip targets mobile information appliances, smart phones and MP3 players, and integrates a 200-MHz ARM920T. The chip is the first in a planned family that looks to add wireless-networking capability as it moves forward, such as GSM/GPRS, Bluetooth and W-CDMA technology. "We're using this as the foundation for the future of this new business unit," Croft said. Both the Palm and Handspring PDAs now use the 33-MHz Dragonball processor from Motorola. With consumers asking for more functionality than expansion slots can bring, Palm has stated its intention to move to a more powerful processor. Motorola has licensed ARM Ltd. technology to give its aging product line a boost, in hopes of maintaining its dominance in handheld MPUs. Other players include Intel's X-scale technology and offerings from Cirrus Logic, IBM and Sharp. All will be angling for dominance in a chip market that IC Insights Inc. (Scottsdale, Ariz.) estimates will grow to $2.2 billion by 2004, from $875 million in PDA ICs in 2000. The Agilent device integrates a full-color LCD controller, frame buffer, external memory controller, programmable phase-locked loop and versatile memory manager. The system chip is software-agnostic, supporting the Palm OS, Microsoft's Windows CE and PocketPC, as well as Linux and Symbian's Epoc operating system. Though listed at 200 MHz, that figure "is the internal speed; the external speed is actually 100 MHz," said Trevor Yancey, vice president of technology at IC Insights. "That's still a very significant jump from the Dragonball processors. Palm has said that within the year, they're going to move to higher speeds. I think this is a wise move on Agilent's part, as long as it can drum up business." Tom Starnes, principal analyst at Gartner Dataquest, said information appliances will evolve and expand in functionality. "It's nice to see chips like this. It makes possible a better, higher-performance version of the handheld," Starnes said. "Each one of these chips moves us closer to where it's a reasonable product, in terms of price, where the value starts making sense for what you get. Agilent's pricing is very aggressive." The chip has been sampling for six weeks to PDA and smart-phone makers and will be available in August. Made on an 0.18-micron process, it will sell for $15 in quantities of 100,000. IC Insights' Yancey also described the price as aggressive.