Intel will adopt UK firm’s 2.5G mobile IPRichard Wilson
Intel is the latest big name licensee of the GSM/GPRS-based 2.5G mobile phone reference design of TTPCom.
This will give the UK mobile communications developer another important source of baseband ICs which will be compatible with and run its next generation mobile phone protocol software.
“Our objective is to be the industry standard in GSM/GPRS and securing Intel alongside our other major silicon partners is another step in this direction,” said Tony Milbourn, managing director of Royston-based TTPCom.
To date TTPCom’s GPRS platform and protocol stack has been designed to work with specific RF and baseband chipsets supplied by Hitachi and Analog Devices. The licensing of Intel provides another source of baseband chips for manufacturers using the TTPCom platform.
It has already licensed to nine handset and terminal manufacturers.
According to Hans Geyer, v-p and general manager of Intel’s mobile comms division: “As a leading supplier for GSM and GPRS solutions, TTPCom is ideally placed to enable us to extend our range of wireless solutions.”
The reference design, which is intended for new entrants to the mobile data terminal and handset markets, is intended to allow embedded applications to co-exist with the mobile software, and also encompasses use of PPP (Peer to Peer Protocol) as a standard application to communicate with terminals that already access the Internet via dial up connections. It includes new components and enhancements to existing TTPCom GSM software including layer 1, protocol stack, application layer and circuit switched data
software.
TTPCom insists that there is enormous potential in the GPRS-based mobile market and within 18 months most new mobiles launched will be GPRS enabled.
