The Hindu : National : Finally, the world's first single-chip mobile phone

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 27, 2005

National

National

Finally, the world's first single-chip mobile phone

By Anand Parthasarathy

BANGALORE, JAN. 26. The race to create a single chip, to fuel all the electronics that go into a mobile phone ended on Monday. Texas Instruments (TI), U.S.-based digital signal processing leader, has announced success in putting on the same slab of silicon, two disparate set of circuits: the digital audio portion that handles the voice capability; and the radio frequency or RF circuits that send the signal, to and fro, as radio waves.

The challenge has been to make these twin elements work on the same chip, without interfering with each other — and the world's leading wireless chipmakers were known to be grappling with the complexity for three years now. The only element of the mobile phone's functioning that will not be on TI's Digital RF Processor chip is the software — and this will in all probability be "burned" on the memory chip that already controls the battery power.

The announcement by TI, was made simultaneously with Nokia — who is expected to be the first mobile phone-maker to come out with hand sets based on the single chip solution a year from now.

Analysts who have long characterised a one-chip phone as the "holy grail" of the cellular phone business, say the first products are expected to be mass-market entry-level models for the burgeoning markets of India and China. Gradually, more advanced, Internet-ready phones will go the one-chip way.

Other handset makers will inevitably embrace this technology which has the potential for huge savings in fabrication cost. One can also expect other chipmakers — particularly Intel, Philips and Qualcomm — to offer their own single-chip technology, any time now.

While TI does not often identify individual development centres with its products, it will surprise no one if key elements of the single-chip phone work was carried out in India.

Its Bangalore-based development team is a major research hothouse for the Texas-based company and has earlier created "Sangam," the world's first single-chip solution for a high-speed modem as well as "Ankur," an advanced digital signal processor.

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