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Single-chip
Bluetooth cordless telephony
access point design features
a sub-$15 bill of materials
* expert Bluetooth design services
allow single-chip solutions
for emerging product markets
At
WiCon Americas, Cambridge Consultants
is unveiling an off-the-shelf
reference design for a Bluetooth
cordless telephony access point
featuring a very low bill of
materials of under $15. The
cost breakthrough stems from
an implementation that uses
only the processor integrated
on a single-chip Bluetooth device
from the market-leading BlueCore
family, and is achieved by means
of novel application software
that runs natively - a technique
made possible by Cambridge Consultants'
design partnership with the
chip maker CSR.
The new design is targeted at
an exciting emerging market
being pioneered by BT in Europe
with its ‘Bluephone’
initiative, and attracting the
attention of many other telcos
and virtual network operators
around the world. It supports
the concept of mobile handsets
with Bluetooth being used as
more versatile 'three-way' devices:
making calls on the cellular
network when roaming, but when
at home or in range of an access
point, using Bluetooth for a
cordless connection to the fixed
network, or as an intercom to
other devices. Although this
concept has been discussed before
with wireless standards like
DECT, the runaway success of
Bluetooth in the mobile phone
arena is now making it an interesting
proposition for the telecommunications
industry. Variants of the access
point design also support the
powerful data communications
capabilities of Bluetooth.
Cambridge Consultants is demonstrating
a circuit design for a single-line
telephony access point suitable
for residential applications,
but has similar circuits available
for related multi-line office
and public applications. The
design is offered as a reference
design ready for manufacture
or adaptation - complete with
schematics, PCB files, and software
- for a one-off license fee
or per-unit royalties.
"Our extensive experience
in the Bluetooth sector, and
design agreement with CSR, allows
us to help OEMs enter emerging
product markets more quickly,
and thereby create leaner and
more finely-tuned designs",
says Tim Whittaker of Cambridge
Consultants. "With this
design we have stripped a very
significant amount of cost from
the usual bill of materials,
as well as reducing PCB size
and power consumption".
The
Bluetooth telephony access point
is built around a single-chip
BlueCore2 device and its on-chip
XAP microcontroller, with a
power amplifier to achieve Class
1 performance and support a
range of 100 meters (108 yards).
Its small bill of materials
costs under $15 in OEM volumes.
The design uses external Flash
memory for the application program,
and a low-cost external codec
for the Bluetooth-to-PSTN interface.
The bill of materials can be
reduced even further by migrating
the design to a BlueCore device
with integral ROM and codec,
once a product concept is proven.
The design is implemented on
a PCB measuring 40x58mm (~1.6x2.3inches).
The
application software in the
demonstrator implements three
Bluetooth Profiles: cordless
telephony, hands-free, and headset.
A dialler application running
on a PDA or phone platform can
also be added, for use with
a headset. Other Profiles may
be added easily, depending on
an OEM's product requirements.
In addition to a design partnership
with CSR for application-specific
single-chip Bluetooth designs,
Cambridge Consultants has extensive
experience in the 802.15.4/ZigBee
market, and a similar software
design partnership with the
leading vendor in this field,
Ember Corporation.
BlueCore is a trademark of CSR,
and Bluetooth is a trademark
of the Bluetooth SIG.
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