With a view to a much smaller handset, cheaper price and quicker time to market, Conexant Systems Inc. has rolled out what it describes as a complete system solution for a multi-slot global system for GSM/GPRS.
“This advancement,” said Moiz Beguwala, senior vice president and general manager for Conexant’s wireless communications division, “is a key step on the road to delivering a broader variety of Internet services to users, no matter where they are.”
The solution, which will serve as a stepping stone to 3G with fast connections to packet-based voice, video and data services, comprises five devices, which include an analog and digital baseband processor, a power management tool, a direct-conversion transceiver and a tri-band, multi-slot power amplifier.
“The combination of the five allow components to be reduced by more than one-third and the board size by 50 percent,” said Charlie Wilcoxson, Conexant’s director of marketing for GSM and GPRS.
The analog and digital baseband processor integrates an ARM 7 core with thumb instruction set for layer 2 and 3 protocol software and man-machine interface processing functions. It can minimize consumption and handles voice band, mixed signal, transit power control and radio-control functions. The power management is a single-chip integrated circuit with all the voltages for the phone with battery-charging circuitry.
Its direct conversion transceiver integrates low-noise amplifiers, a demodulator, baseband filters and a sequencer that corrects direct current offset. It also integrates high-power UHF and transmits voltage oscillators and buffers, as well as a fractional-N synthesizer, which allows the system to change channels as required by GPRS.
The tri-band, multi-slot power amplifier is new and supports European GSM900, DCS800 and PCS1900 operation plus up to four-slot transmission for GSM/GPRS class operation.
Wilcoxson said the solution is type-approved and operator qualified and is sampling now, set to hit the market commercially in the third quarter of the 2001.
He said Conexant is partnering with Pixo, which delivers applications for mobile devices, to integrate its OS platform, microbrowsers and man machine interface.
He said the solution is unique in that it eliminates intermediate frequency conversion steps of earlier mobile handset solutions.
The company said the solution is applicable for both 2.5 G and 3G, although he says “we have worked out a road map to our 3G offering.”
Conexant was spun off from Rockwell three years ago, and has stood as one of the top-tier makers of chip solutions.
