A new UK start up has broken technological and price barriers with what it claims to be the first chip that combines all the elements of the Bluetooth wireless interconnect standard on a single die. Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), which is a spin-off from Cambridge Consultants, has combined a 2.4GHz radio element, baseband and microcontroller on one CMOS chip. Bluetooth is the short range wireless device interconnect standard backed by Nokia, Ericsson, IBM, Intel and others. Typically, Bluetooth chipsets consist of two or more separate chips.
James Collier, CSR co-founder and technical director at CSR, says that the chip will have many applications in the telecommunications, home and industrial sphere, from mobile phones and home networking to wireless peripherals. Collier was cagey about how the company had made its breakthrough, saying only that the chip had a radically different architecture from other vendors’ Bluetooth offerings. Other companies, notably IBM Corp, have offered GSM chips that combine the RF and logic elements on a single die. However, Collier called IBM’s method a fancy, expensive process. He said that other vendors working on Bluetooth had been blinkered in their approach to chip development.
CSR has been working on radio chips since 1987. The new company has scored $10m in funding from Amadeus Capital, 3i and the Dutch Glide IT Funds. CSR will sample the chips by the end of the year and expects volume production by 2000. The chip will be fabbed by major chip makers in Europe and Asia. Collier said that the company already had significant potential customer interest but would give no further details. The chips will start at around $8 but Collier expects that to fall to $2 over the next five years.
