EETimes India - December 1, 2008 - (Page 4) Trends WiMAX goes beyond mobile devices By Rick Clucas CEO Coresonic AB WiMAX is a hot topic in India, particularly with recent reports about different R&D and manufacturing units being set up or already established in the country. It has been estimated that the Indian WiMAX market will represent approximately 20 per cent of the global user base. This is great news for all established and emerging players in the WiMAX ecosystem, but the real impact of this and other ‘fourth generation’ wireless standards is probably still not understood. A lot of opinions are so far based on the idea that WiMAX can simply be added to any communications device that supports wireless connectivity, like laptop computers, PDAs and mobile Internet devices. This is because designers and manufacturers are looking at it with the primary concern of how they can improve the connectivity of existing devices. But from a semiconductor IP (intellectual property) provider standpoint, we see a bigger potential to change the entire dynamics of the consumer electronics space. Figure: An architecture that allows WiMAX connectivity to be added to any chip design with only 1.5 sq mm of additional silicon in a 65nm process. new markets, as well as operators, in terms of new options for content delivery and sharing. Re-thinking architecture A major barrier to incorporating WiMAX or 4G into many types of consumer electronics devices is the unavailability of base band modems that are small enough and have little additional impact on power consumption, and ultimately on the overall bill of materials (BoM) cost. It is well known that even 3G phones today give nowhere near the battery life that their predecessor 2G phones were able to deliver, because of the significant additional pro- “The market in India is opening to WiMAX and is expected to widen significantly, beginning only with mobile Internet devices.” If we can incorporate WiMAX and other standards such as LTE into any device, not just mobile devices, a whole new market of opportunities previously not considered will start to appear. For example, not only do we start seeing WiMAX and LTE being added to mobile phones and PCs, but also to video and digital still cameras, set-top boxes, media players, and automotive infotainment systems. The ability to move high-resolution graphics and video in real-time would provide significant new opportunities for both manufacturers, in terms of cessing power that is required in 3G compared to 2G. This is probably one of the reasons why 3G operators have struggled to date, because the consumer experience has not lived up to previous expectations. The key to overcoming this barrier is to re-think the processing architecture so that the silicon implementation of the modem itself can be extremely small. This way, designers can add connectivity to an electronics device without having to worry too much about adding to the power consumption. Furthermore, because it involves adding so little silicon, the incremental cost of adding connectivity also becomes very small. There is a need to eliminate the bottlenecks inherent in traditional base band processing solutions, and to produce a viable solution for WiMAX, LTE and other standards. This can only be achieved if the architecture focuses on three critical issues: data processing, data flow and programming efficiency. This can deliver a very small gate count (less than 1.5 sq mm of additional silicon) to produce a full mobile WiMAX Wave 2 solution, which only requires a maximum clock speed of 250MHz. Even in the worst-case scenario of constant full usage and no power management, the power consumption using this technology (see figure) would still be less than 50mW in a 65nm process. If we start adding power management sub-systems and real-life usage patterns into the equation, it is possible to get an actual power consumption figure that would be just a fraction of this. To conclude, the market in India is opening to WiMAX and is expected to widen significantly, beginning only with mobile Internet devices. Once designers come to the realisation that WiMAX, LTE and other wireless modems can be incorporated into many other consumer electronics products—without severely impacting the consumer experience in terms of size, power consumption or Read more online Indian WiMAX market to hit $B by 202 WiMAX Forum forecasts that by 202, the Indian market will support 2.5 crore WiMAX users—about 20% of the global user base. • LTE, WiMAX battle continues • Testing WiMAX, testing www.eetindia.com Discuss Hello WiMAX, goodbye DSL? Will WiMAX eventually move into homes and offices, rendering DSL/cable connections obsolete? Discuss Clucas: If we can incorporate WiMAX into any device without too much impact on size, power and cost, new market opportunities will start to appear. cost—then the dynamics of the consumer electronics space in India will also change considerably. 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