Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Chip crammed with phone, GPS, Bluetooth
Posted by Jason Dunn in "NEWS" @ 11:56 AM
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-867031.html
Convergence in wireless technologies is a good thing - anything that can be done to de-mystify the technologies to the average consumer will ultimately benefit the industry as a whole.
"With wireless doing more every day, handheld devices need to keep up. But adding too many different services to one box puts the cost up and creates interference. Florida company Ashvattha Semiconductor claims to have the answer, with a single chip that combines the radio sides of GSM and GPRS mobile phone standards, a GPS satellite navigation system and a Bluetooth personal area network. The chip should knock around $28 (£20) off the parts cost of a multifunction device that uses all three services, said the company, effectively making one of the functions free to the designer.
Existing designs needed multiple chips because mobile phone reception and transmission, while on a different frequency to GPS, creates so much noise that it swamps the weak signals from space. By creating highly isolated areas of the chip and very carefully arranging the internal frequencies that the chip uses, Ashvatta claims to have succeeded where other companies have tried and failed. Other advantages to the design includes a reduction of circuit board size and power consumption." Source: Steven Cedrone
Convergence in wireless technologies is a good thing - anything that can be done to de-mystify the technologies to the average consumer will ultimately benefit the industry as a whole.
"With wireless doing more every day, handheld devices need to keep up. But adding too many different services to one box puts the cost up and creates interference. Florida company Ashvattha Semiconductor claims to have the answer, with a single chip that combines the radio sides of GSM and GPRS mobile phone standards, a GPS satellite navigation system and a Bluetooth personal area network. The chip should knock around $28 (£20) off the parts cost of a multifunction device that uses all three services, said the company, effectively making one of the functions free to the designer.
Existing designs needed multiple chips because mobile phone reception and transmission, while on a different frequency to GPS, creates so much noise that it swamps the weak signals from space. By creating highly isolated areas of the chip and very carefully arranging the internal frequencies that the chip uses, Ashvatta claims to have succeeded where other companies have tried and failed. Other advantages to the design includes a reduction of circuit board size and power consumption." Source: Steven Cedrone
