 | October 1, 2000 |
Inciting action
OUTLOOK: New Bluetooth entry hopes to spark revolution
With all the buzz around Bluetooth and the "personal network," it's no surprise that leading chipmakers are jumping on the bandwagon to provide chipsets for future products.
Texas Instruments, for one, accelerated its development program in 1999 with the acquisition of Butterfly VLSI, a developer of radio-frequency (RF) and systems technology used in short-distance wireless communications.
A member of the Bluetooth development community since 1998, TI recently unveiled its complete Bluetooth offering. According to Christian Dupont, general manager of TI's short-distance-wireless business unit, TI expects the entry to "kickstart the eagerly anticipated Bluetooth revolution."
The chipset includes a ROM-based Bluetooth baseband chip with an integrated Bluetooth software stack. The on-chip read-only memory eliminates the need for costly external flash memory. However, it could also limit flexibility, which can be key during the immature early stages of a new standard's life.
The baseband chip mates with an RF transceiver that delivers full-bandwidth, 1-Mbit/sec performance. TI claims that the TRF 6001 surpasses the requirements of the Bluetooth spec. Thanks to high sensitivity, TI says, the transceiver allows applications to operate more reliably at longer distances, unperturbed by interference from intervening objects and competing signals.
As the supplier of the technology in more than 60 percent of existing cell phones, as well as eight of the top 10 portable digital-audio players, TI aims to integrate Bluetooth into a wide variety of applications across multiple industries. Samples of the Bluetooth chipset are out now, and production is scheduled for Q4.
—Margot Suydam
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