Product category:
Communications ICs (Wireless)
News Release from: Broadcom Corp | Subject: Cel
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 14 February 2007
Mobile platform speeds GPRS handset to
market
The Broadcom CellAirity platform for mobile phone designs has been adopted by Lenovo for its recently introduced P768 multimedia GPRS handset.
The Broadcom CellAirity platform for mobile phone designs has been adopted by Lenovo for its recently introduced P768 multimedia GPRS handset The Lenovo P768 leverages Broadcom's field proven silicon, a complete software suite and development and test tools, which helped Lenovo deliver the thin, innovative bar phone to the market quickly
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 14 Feb 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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Platform addresses next generation components
Broadcom Corporation has announced its new CellAirity mobile platform to enable advanced, next generation cellular handsets.
Chipset brings 3G phones down to $100
The CellAirity multimedia mobile phone platform is claimed to help manufacturers to develop handsets with leading-edge 3G functionality at 2G price points.
As the leading phone maker in China, Lenovo's adoption of the CellAirity platform provides a tremendous market opportunity for Broadcom.
The Asia-Pacific handset market, which includes China, is among the fastest growing in the world and is expected to achieve over 461 million handsets in 2011 according to ABI Research, making this a strong market for affordable handsets.
With this opportunity, the makers of cellular phones require key differentiated features to set them apart from the competition and a complete reference platform that simplifies product design and helps accelerate the time to market for these innovative phones.
Further reading
Chinese handset includes advanced multimedia
CellAirity multimedia technology has been designed into a new multimedia handset from mobile device maker Ningbo Bird Co - China's leading manufacturer of mobile phones.
Cellular baseband offers full HSDPA support
Broadcom has released a new cellular baseband processor that is fully compliant with the High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) standard for high-speed cellular data.
Edge transceiver is built on 65nm CMOS process
Broadcom applies years of research and development and extensive expertise in CMOS radio devices to the cellular market to forge an integration path towards a monolithic Edge SoC solution.
To assist phone makers during the design process, Broadcom introduced the CellAirity mobile platform that enables the design of advanced next-generation cellular handsets.
CellAirity is a modular hardware and software design platform that provides best-in-class solutions for all of the critical components required for today's advanced mobile devices, including a feature-rich user experience, 2G and 3G cellular connectivity, multimedia acceleration and support for both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi protocols.
By developing products that incorporate the CellAirity platform, manufacturers of next-generation connected devices can bring their products to market quickly and with the assurance that the platform solutions implemented are among the most advanced in the industry.
"Lenovo constantly strives to produce solutions that offer the latest features, competitive pricing and appealing form factors", said Eric Zhao, Director of Product Department of Lenovo.
"Broadcom's CellAirity platform provides a mature platform with the key features that enabled us to bring this new GPRS phone to market in a timely fashion".
"We are very pleased with the result and anticipate an outstanding user experience for our customers".
"With the rapid pace of innovation in the cellular industry, being able to provide fast time to market can be the key factor in delivering a successful cutting-edge handset product", said David Foos, Senior Marketing Manager for Broadcom's Mobile Communications line of business.
"The Lenovo GPRS mobile handset is a solid validation that our CellAirity platform approach enables top tier handset makers to leverage our mobile technology and bring compelling new products to market".
The Lenovo P768 multimedia handset features 2.5G GPRS connectivity, integrated 2Mpixel camera, and USB and T-Flash interfaces packaged in an attractive bar type form factor.
The handset also provides high-performance multimedia functionality built in, including MPEG4 and H.263 video, support for MP3 and other digital audio formats, and Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR capabilities, for high-quality streaming of stereo music.
To deliver an improved voice experience, the P768 also includes Broadcom's M-Stream technology, which significantly improves voice quality on cellphones, especially in areas with poor signal quality.
The CellAirity hardware is based on Broadcom GPRS, Edge, WEDGE or HSDPA baseband processors, with the Lenovo P768 handset featuring the Broadcom BCM2124 GPRS baseband processor.
The BCM2124 contains all of the analogue and digital GSM and multi-slot GPRS processing functions for connecting to a cellular network in a small, single-chip footprint.
The new Lenovo phone also includes Broadcom's BCM2045 single-chip Bluetooth solution, which enables short range wireless functionality in the handset, including the ability to use wireless mono headsets and stereo headphones to enhance the user experience when employing the phone's multimedia features.
The CellAirity platform also includes multimedia hardware accelerators, an extensive array of audio and video codecs, and a scalable and modular applications software framework designed specifically for devices with limited bandwidth and memory.
In addition to offering an internationalised platform with localisable text and multilanguage support, the framework enables designers to take advantage of pre-integrated clients and also allows for rapid, independent development of new applications.
CellAirity software consists of a common carrier approved communications protocol stack that has been field and carrier tested across multiple 2G and 3G networks, a modular applications framework, and a set of pre-integrated applications for messaging, web access, games, multimedia and connectivity.
The ability to easily add peripheral hardware functionality and software applications provides enhanced versatility, enabling handset designers to adopt a modular platform approach to create a family of handsets spanning features and price points, all developed on a common, field proven platform.
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