Contributors: Bob Wheeler, Jag Bolaria, Joseph Byrne In This Issue Marvell Announces First PXA Processor Earlier this month, Marvell announced its first new product in the PXA line that it acquired from Intel last June. The PXA320 application processor had already been sampling for several months when Marvell acquired the entire PXA line from Intel, although Intel had never formally announced the device, known by its code name of Monahans. The first Monahans product recently entered volume production. Back in August 2005, Intel had demonstrated an early version of Monahans running at 1.2GHz, but the 90nm processor was never intended to be productized at that speed. Marvell announced the PXA320 at speeds up to 804MHz, making it the fastest application processor yet announced. The chip is also available in low-cost and low-voltage versions. The raw speed and improved performance-per-watt of the PXA320 will be attractive for PDAs and smartphones, the markets where Intel was most successful with the PXA line. Although the PXA320 has special instructions to accelerate 3D graphics and video decoding, it does not have full offload engines for these functions. As a result, it will use more power for multimedia than competing application processors that offload these functions. So far, the PXA products are continuing in much the same direction despite changing the name on the label. This new announcement comes from the same management team and has the same branding, the same code names, and the same dependence on software over hardware. While keeping things the same is a good transitional strategy, Marvell has yet to show how it will address the shortcomings that had limited Intel's success in the cell-phone market. —Linley Additional
coverage of the PXA processors appears in our report A
Guide to Wireless Handset Processors. eCosto Improves Mainstream Handsets Last month, Texas Instruments announced a new baseband processor, the OMAP V1035. Also known as eCosto, the highly integrated device targets EDGE multimedia phones. Building on TI's LoCosto device, which is in production, the V1035 adds EDGE support as well as improved multimedia performance, drawing on technologies from TI's more expensive OMAP devices. Like LoCosto, the new chip integrates the baseband transceiver along with the baseband processor. This approach simplifies the design of the radio subsystem, requiring only an external power amplifier (PA) and a small front-end module (FEM). This simplification reduces cost and board area. The chip also includes an ARM9 CPU capable of audio and video playback at up to 30fps on QVGA screens, making it suitable for many multimedia phones. The V1035 is TI's first standard baseband processor built in 65nm technology, although the company has been building custom 65nm baseband chips for Nokia and others for nearly two years. The new chip delivers the features required in today's mainstream handsets, driving down cost through integration and the use of 65nm manufacturing. The V1035 underscores TI's lead in EDGE handset processors. —Linley Additional coverage of TI's OMAP processors appears in our report A Guide to Wireless Handset Processors. Agere announced another new handset processor, the Vision X122, for low-cost phones. The new device is a lower-priced version of the X125, which was announced in September. Whereas the X125 offers a complete 2.75G baseband, the X122 omits EDGE support, making it suitable only for 2.5G (GSM/GPRS) phones. The two 90nm chips are otherwise similar, combining the baseband engine with a separate ARM9 application processor and common handset interfaces. Agere says the X122 can be combined with an external radio subsystem and memory to form a handset with a materials cost as low as $30. —Linley Additional coverage of the Agere's Vision processors appears in our report A Guide to Wireless Handset Processors. Australian startup Cohda Wireless begun trial deployments of its wireless technology earlier this month. Designed to adapt OFDM-based Wi-Fi to outdoors and highly mobile use, the technology accommodates the longer delays among multipath reflections encountered outdoors and adapts to transmission variations occurring throughout the duration of a packet. The company is targeting outdoor Wi-Fi applications, particularly municipal Wi-Fi deployments to support public safety. Focusing on this niche best showcases Cohda's technology and shields the company from the brutal competition of the retail and PC markets. The niche is small, though; few system vendors, such as Tropos, target it specifically. Longer term the company will have to expand to other markets. Its best opportunities may lie beyond Wi-Fi because the cellular industry is looking to use OFDM as the basis of its 4G network. —Joe To receive Linley on CE via e-mail, you must register on our web site
|
