Feature

You can punch out and manufacture this cell-phone reference design

Prying Eyes examines an ultra-low-cost cell-phone reference design.

By Ron Wilson, Executive Editor -- EDN, 4/17/2008

Providing a reference design for ultra-low-cost handsets to OEMs in Asia means a lot more than sending them a development board and a data sheet. In many cases, these companies want a fully functioning end product in the right form factor, complete with board film.

The Infineon XMM1013 dual-mode handset is a case in point. The design pairs an Infineon XGold SOC (system on chip) for GSM (global-system-for-mobile)-communication voice and data service with an Atheros AR6101 802.11 transceiver for voice-over-Wi-Fi applications.

Keeping the combination of GSM and Wi-Fi in a single handset that sells for a retail price of less than $100 requires eliminating any package that can be integrated. Hence, this unit incorporates multichip packages for memory. The two SOCs also require few passive components.

Mouse over the image below to identify key parts: