Alcatel announced today the sampling of its new Bluetooth baseband chip. The Bluetooth design, called the MTC-60180, is the first Bluetooth chip on the market offering complete V1.1 functionality with proven interoperability.
The Alcatel MTC-60180 Bluetooth baseband offers functionalities such as full data rate potential, point-to-multipoint - for piconets where a Bluetooth-enabled device talks to several other devices, and scatternet capability - allowing for ad-hoc networking. With Alcatel`s Bluetooth solution, equipment manufacturers will fully benefit from the capabilities of Alcatel`s advanced Bluetooth technology to offer to their customers Bluetooth-enabled electronic devices with extensive new features.
"The sampling of our Bluetooth baseband is another milestone for the Bluetooth community. It will accelerate the adoption of Bluetooth by consumers as the chip`s complete functionality opens up new applications," said Vincent Mouret, Vice President, Alcatel`s Wireless IC solutions. "The flash memory, embedded in the chip, offers both compactness and flexibility. Customers can benefit from software upgrades faster and can differentiate their products by adding application layers without the need for external memory."
Stan Bruederle, Chief Analyst of Gartner Dataquest, stated: "Gartner Dataquest projects that by the end of 2002 more than 30 million Bluetooth-based personal electronics products will be produced. By 2005 the potential market for Bluetooth solutions is expected to reach more than 750 million units and $3 billion in revenues."
The MTC-60180 baseband is the first in a family of Bluetooth products to be released over the next year. Various dedicated versions of the baseband will be brought to market from early 2002 on, taking advantage of the latest evolution in technology. A radio is scheduled to come out in mid-2002.
The MTC-60180 includes a baseband controller, ARM7 microprocessor, 48 KB RAM, a 1Mb flash for the lower protocol stack and an additional 1Mb flash for the upper layers and the application, the latter being customisable. Features include low-power consumption, encryption, and park-hold-sniff capability. Dedicated application interfaces will simplify product implementation. For example, a Blue RF interface guarantees connectivity with most of the RF chips available on the market; the UART interface is specifically for data exchange and a selectable PCM/GCI interface is compatible with most of the standard voice codecs. The baseband`s embedded flash in 0.25 micron CMOS, the most reliable technology for this application today, makes it a compact baseband. It also allows for a fast move to ROM, using the TSMC FlashROMTM technology.
The MTC-60180 evaluation kit, available for several radio chips on the market, includes the evaluation board with radio and baseband, all necessary evaluation software, full documentation as well as a headphone for audio testing.
Alcatel designs and manufacturers leading-edge system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for telecom equipment manufacturers, various application specific standard products (ASSPs) and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for automotive and peripheral customers. Alcatel is the number one supplier of ADSL chipsets worldwide and is the fourth largest semiconductor supplier in Europe, with 28 offices worldwide. More information about Alcatel`s semiconductor solutions can be found on www.alcatel.com/microelectronics.
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Alcatel builds next-generation networks and the chips that power them, delivering integrated end-to-end voice and data communications solutions to established and new carriers, as well as enterprises and consumers worldwide. With 110 000 employees and sales of 31 billion euros in 2000, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries.
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