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29th June 2005

Landmark Bluetooth product for fixed-mobile convergence developed in three months using innovative tool

A wireless telephony access point for home use - a product that is one of the most sophisticated deeply-embedded Bluetooth systems ever developed - has been created in record time with the aid of a new development tool from Cambridge Consultants.

Designed in just three months by Clipcomm, for Korea Telecom's 'OnePhone' fixed-mobile-convergence (FMC) service, the new BlueStation series uses Bluetooth to allow mobile phone users to make or receive calls over the fixed wireline phone network when at home. This facility allows mobile phone users to use the same phone and number wherever they are, and reduce call charges. With Bluetooth becoming commonplace on mobile phones, this telephony concept is attracting worldwide attention, and a similar scheme called BT Fusion is currently being launched in the UK by BT.

Conventionally, sophisticated Bluetooth products employ a Bluetooth chip operating under the control of another processor, which manages the overall system and the user interface. However, the recent introduction of Cambridge Consultants' xIDE for Interface Express tools gives users unrestricted access to the full native power of the XAP processor core inside CSR's market-leading Bluetooth device, BlueCore. This allowed Clipcomm to develop a single chip solution that performs both Bluetooth and system control functions, saving the cost and real estate required for a separate processor and memory - an important consideration for a cost-sensitive consumer product like this.

Up to now, 'hostless' Bluetooth systems, employing the XAP processor inside BlueCore, have typically been used for relatively simple applications such as headsets, which need only a small amount of Bluetooth application software (Profiles), and some simple user controls such as an LED and push-buttons.

However, Clipcomm's new access point product is much more sophisticated. The embedded system handles up to four handsets and two public network lines, and has to support multiple instances of CTP, HSP, GAP and SDP Bluetooth Profiles (cordless telephony, headset, generic access and service discovery respectively). In addition, BlueCore manages the rest of the embedded system and its user interface. This includes a peripheral that performs the required public network functions such as dial tone generation, tone detection and caller ID detection. Conventionally, these functions can be performed by a low-cost application-specific IC, but Clipcomm has chosen to implement them using a DSP - which allows it to perform line echo cancellation as well - providing a very high performance solution.

With the aid of xIDE for Interface Express, the complete embedded system was developed in just three months. Clipcomm purchased three licenses for the software development kit (SDK) which provides a complete compile/make/debug toolchain for the XAP processor, plus a library of qualified Bluetooth Profiles. Another major aspect of the toolsuite is its integrated development environment (IDE), which simplifies software projects through a highly-graphical software project management environment and user interface.

Speed of development was aided by the IDE and the Profiles in the SDK - which feature very high-level APIs. The APIs minimise the application software required to call and run Profiles - supporting both the speed of development and the efficiency of the resulting code.

"Without this SDK, it's unlikely we could have implemented this embedded system in such an economic way," says Jaewoo Ahn, CTO at Clipcomm. "The high-level application level interface of the SDK also reduced the development time required for this product. It's helped us to create a very powerful and economic access point solution, very early in the lifecycle of this important emerging telephony market".

"Bluetooth is now finding its way into many more complex applications", adds Cambridge Consultants' Tim Fowler. "This new toolsuite - with its integrated development environment - provides Bluetooth developers with the high-level development support they need to address these opportunities. Engineers can really exploit its facilities to rapidly create powerful Bluetooth products, as Clipcomm's engineers have demonstrated on this remarkable development project".

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