New TI Chipset Leverages OMAP™710 GSM/GPRS System-on-a-Chip for Next-Generation Wireless Data and Voice
TI Delivers Industry's Most Complete Smart Phone Chipset Reference Design
DALLAS (October 24, 2001) -- The broad market availability of 2.5G mobile smart phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) will receive a significant boost today, thanks to a new highly-integrated chipset offering from Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE:TXN) (TI) that delivers voice and enhanced data. The new chipset provides wireless device manufacturers with a complete "antenna-to-applications" solution and reference design for enabling optimal performance and power savings for 2.5G mobile devices. TI's OMAP(tm) platform technology lies at the heart of the chipset and is the first processor to integrate a GSM/GPRS modem and a dedicated applications processor on a single chip that supports next-generation, bandwidth-intensive wireless applications. (See http://www.ti.com/sc/TCS2500)
The programmable digital signal processor (DSP)-based TCS2500 chipset leverages the OMAP710 processor to enable services such as multimedia messaging, short video clip and Internet audio downloads, e-mail, real-time Web browsing and games. Building on the benefits of TI's TCS2100 GPRS chipset announced in June 2001, the new TCS2500 chipset combines the OMAP710 processor with TI's leading analog baseband and RF technology to offer a comprehensive silicon and software offering. Tailored specifically for 2.5G smart phone and PDA devices, the TCS2500 chipset adds to TI's growing family of GPRS solutions.
"The TCS2500 chipset is an integral part of TI's strategy to provide powerfully integrated solutions that speed time-to-market for our OEM customers," said Jean-Luc Villevieille, general manager of TI's wireless chipset solutions. "With the TCS2500 offerings, wireless designers will benefit from TI's 10 years of wireless expertise plus our OMAP platform, which has already been selected by a wide variety of manufacturers as the de facto standard for 2.5 and 3G devices."
TI Chipsets Provide Significant Advantages for Wireless Industry
Wireless device manufacturers can significantly reduce cost and form factors over current smart phones and PDA implementations due to the integration in the TCS2500 chipset. At the same time, the chipset allows new systems to maintain low power and performance comparable to today's voice-centric 2G wireless phones. Also important for wireless device manufacturers, TI's TCS2500 solutions includes the key building blocks for quickly and easily developing 2.5G devices: a GSM/GPRS digital baseband processor, which includes dedicated applications functionality, analog baseband and RF companion chips, plus complete software solutions including protocol stacks.
At the core of the solution is TI's OMAP710 processor that incorporates a DSP-based GSM/GPRS digital baseband engine and an ARM9 microprocessor with integrated MMU and cache for complete modem and applications support. As part of TI's OMAP family of flexible, open processors, the OMAP710 features full support of advanced mobile operating systems such as Microsoft's Windows CE, PalmOS, Symbian OS and Linux®. In addition, the OMAP710 provides Java programming support and gives wireless device manufacturers access to a network of application developers who are actively creating applications for the OMAP platform.
The OMAP710 processor is code compatible with TI's OMAP1510 processor and other future OMAP wireless products. This allows designers building products on one processor to quickly and easily port code to another, saving significant engineering resources for manufacturers.
Other devices in the TCS2500 chipset include the TWL3012 analog baseband and the TRF6150 RF IC. The TWL3012 combines voiceband and baseband codecs with single and multi-slot IQ RF interfaces, and auxiliary RF converters into a highly integrated device. The TRF6150 is a highly integrated RF IC based on an advanced direct conversion architecture, yielding bill of materials (BOM) reductions of about 30 percent versus competitive super heterodyne architectures.
Complete 2.5G Wireless Smart Phone Reference Design Reduces Time to Market
The TCS2500 chipset includes a full array of software development tools as well as a complete OMAP710-based reference design that together can reduce development time by more than half a year. The reference design includes the complete BOM, board design and layout, a fully type-approved reference design, best-in-class and worldwide customer support and access to a complete GSM/GPRS Layer 1, 2 and 3 stack. The reference design is a complete 2.5G wireless system solution that is ready to be manufactured and put into final plastics.
The TCS2500 chipset is sampling to customers today and will begin shipping before the end of 2001.
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OMAP is a trademark of Texas Instruments Incorporated.
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