Microwave Engineering Europe - September 2008 - (Page 30)

30 MOBILE PLATFORMS Mobile platforms evolve to meet future demands By Ian Smythe, Renesas, www.renesas.eu T he driving factors of cost reduction and accelerating time-to-market, coupled with the need to employ wellproven technology, has led to the widespread adoption of a platform approach to electronic system design of all types of consumer electronic products, including mobile handsets. Increasingly differentiation of applications is also a growing consideration, and the business model for mobile handset platforms is continuing to evolve in order to meet this need. The platform concept originally became popular as a means of enabling Tier 2 and Tier 3 handset manufacturers to be more competitive with the market leaders, due to the economies of scale that it allowed them. Now it is even more popular with the Tier 1 OEMs, who are keen to concentrate their efforts on developing innovative software and to push the hardware design further down the value chain. As a consequence semiconductor manufacturers are increasingly ﬁnding themselves taking on the system design functions and providing a full, but customisable, hardware solution — even to their larger customers. For reasons that will be explained here, this approach addresses the conﬂicting demands of silicon stability for product integrity and ﬂexibility to address the continuous demand for new features and functionality. This article analyses the background and theory of the platform concept, takes a judgement on how far this approach can and should be applied, and describes the options available to engineers that can mitigate the restrictions placed upon them by pre-deﬁned platform technologies. the handset OEM to focus on applications demanded by the consumer, while the silicon vendor can be nimble enough to provide a fully developed platform in time for them to hit the required product window. One of the over-riding factors in the need for ﬂexibility is the unpredictability of consumers’ changing requirements. Although it may be far removed from the design engineer’s normal priorities, fashion is a powerful driver of consumer product design, and nowhere is this more keenly felt than in mobile phones — the hype surrounding the launch of the Apple iPhone is a compelling example. Drivers Cost and time to market are still crucial for commercial success, but even though product design cycles are now shorter than ever it is still necessary to have stable silicon about halfway through the design cycle for a new handset platform. It takes around 2 to 3 years to develop a platform for these complex consumer products, yet the requirements of these products in terms of functionality and standards may change every few months. Giving the silicon vendor control of the hardware platform allows Figure 1(a) shows the block diagram of a typical 2G phone of 1999, compared with Figure 1(b), the typical architecture of a phone handset today (Nokia N95), demonstrating the use of a companion chip for processing media applications (based on original data from Portelligent). Microwave Engineering Europe ● September 2008 ● www.mwee.com 030-031-032-033_MWEE.indd 30 3/09/08 15:16:46 http://www.renesas.eu http://www.mwee.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Microwave Engineering Europe - September 2008

Microwave Engineering Europe - September 2008 News Contents Comment Cover Feature: Uncovering Test and Measurement’s Role in Advancing LTE and Mobile WiMAX WiMax: WiMax and LTE Need to Address Issues of Backhaul, Cost and Efficiency for Successful Deployment WiMax: Manufacturing Communications Technology Products in India Test and Measurement Mobile Platforms Evolve to Meet Future Demands Products Calendar

Microwave Engineering Europe - September 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.