Motorola Inc. claims it is the only company that has full type approval certification for its wireless reference designs for handhelds. Texas Instruments disagrees.
Pointing to its I.250 platform for GPRS as a key example, Motorola said it has moved ahead of the pack with its system, which allows time to market and simplicity of use, according to Ed Valdez, director of platform marketing for the semiconductor division at Motorola.
“They may not have all the information,” replied Tom Pollard in response to Motorola’s claim. Pollard, worldwide director of chipset marketing for Texas Instruments, said his company’s reference designs also have FTA certification.
However, neither company can prove their claims by referring to specific documents from standards bodies like the Third Generation Partnership Project.
“The difference is that they (Texas Instruments) count on their customers to go do their certification. But we are certified,” said Valdez. “It’s interesting that they are willing to go public with the information.”
Valdez contended that unlike others, Motorola provides the five integrated circuits in the phone, which include baseband, power management, radio frequency-intermediate frequency, power amplifier module and battery charger and protection circuitry.
Both companies claim their designs have had interoperability testing or IOT, which makes their designs more valuable to top-tier operators.
“Whatever we have bundled together, customers know it is chosen and used by tier-one operators,” said Valdez, adding that Motorola’s reference design provides system, manufacturing and test cost savings.
The reference designs contain well-integrated, well-tested building blocks of technology, user-interface systems and a full array of applications with which a licensee can create a product for custom use.
Pollard said the majority of its customers are original design manufacturers, most of them in Taiwan and China. These are also the epicenters of outsourced manufacturing in the world. TI provides the reference design for Microsoft Corp.’s Smartphone 2002, as well as Nokia Corp.’s Series 60 platform.
But more companies are rolling out reference designs. Recently, Microsoft and Samsung Semiconductor Inc. agreed to work together to develop a reference design that will incorporate Microsoft Pocket PC software with Samsung ARM9-based S3C2410 application processor. Research In Motion Ltd. announced earlier this year that it is working on a reference design.
“Mobile device manufacturers can take advantage of fully optimized low-cost concept designs to bring their products to market quickly and at competitive price points,” said Juha Christensen, corporate vice president for the mobile devices division at Microsoft.
Motorola’s Valdez said its reference designs allow engineers to use 125 parts instead of the 250 used by most systems. Motorola also announced that one of China’s top handset makers, TCL Mobile Communications, has chosen the 1.250 platform for its products.
“Our rapid growth over the past year demands reliable and rapid product enhancements as we strive to deliver the highest quality GSM/GPRS handsets to millions of customers,” said Wan Minigjian, chief executive of TCL Mobile Communications. “For this, we were looking for a fully scalable platform for designing and developing handsets and smart phones in a high-potential, high-growth environment.”
