CSR Uses Widcomm Software For Platform
Electronics Weekly -- EDN, August 23, 2001
Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) is offering a combined Bluetooth single-chip and software design package aimed at builders of Windows-based desktops and notebooks, reports Electronics Weekly, an e-inSITE affiliate.
The combined hardware and software platform, which is pre-qualified to version 1.1 of the Bluetooth standard, is a result of the Cambridge, England-based company’s collaboration with San Diego-based software developer Widcomm Inc.
“Everything is provided from the antenna and CSR’s single-chip silicon, to the Windows end-application,” said Simon Finch, CSR’s vice president of strategic marketing, in a statement. “Unlike competing offerings it is based on a single chip - including USB.”
The platform consists of Widcomm’s BTW Bluetooth communications software stack for Windows and CSR’s BlueCore01 chip, hardware reference designs, and complete application software with installers.
“The bundle is interoperable, pre-tested and ready to deploy,” said Andreas Malzach, Widcomm’s vice president of software business, in a statement. “This new business model will speed Bluetooth market deployment on a broad scale.”
Widcomm’s Bluetooth software is being used by several Bluetooth chipset suppliers, most recently Infineon Technologies AG, which like CSR announced a design platform based on Widcomm’s software earlier this week.
In June, CSR said it had shipped 1 million of its single-chip Bluetooth product, BlueCore 01. The company claimed that 48 percent of qualified Bluetooth end products will incorporate the chip, which is currently the only single-chip solution available in large volumes.
The BlueCore 01 integrates the radio, baseband, microcontroller, full Bluetooth protocol stack, complete Bluetooth profiles and an applications software layer on one IC. It is manufactured on a high volume CMOS process and has the capability of running with the full Bluetooth stack-on-chip, the company said.
