MUNICH -- After nine months of collaboration, Infineon Technologies AG and Toshiba Corp. today announced development of two new Bluetooth ICs--a radio-frequency transceiver and a baseband device--which are intended to server high-volume consumer product applications.
The two companies said a complete system solution for Bluetooth wireless connections in consumer products will be made available in the first quarter of 2002. Infineon is contributing its new PMB 626 RF transceiver, while Toshiba's semiconductor group is providing a new baseband IC, called the TC35651.
The first products resulting from the Bluetooth partnership are aimed at consumer products with Universal Serial Bus (USB) and Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) functionality, said the two companies, which began their alliance in March.
"Our cooperation with Toshiba will further accelerate Bluetooth penetration into consumer products," predicted Christian Baumgart, vice president and general manager of short-range wireless products at Munich-based Infineon. "Our new PMB 6626 expands our BlueMoon family and is a major step towards embedded Bluetooth applications."
Toshiba in Japan sees Bluetooth as "the most promising digital communications technology," said Shigeru Komatsu, general manager of the Network & Telecommunication System LSI Division at Toshiba Semiconductor. "Our baseband LSI with Infineon's RF transceiver IC will help us establish a leading position in the emerging digital consumer market," he said.
The Bluetooth baseband IC is fabricated with Toshiba's 0.18-micron CMOS technology and it operates on a 1.5-volt power supply. The chip incorporates a RISC-based processor core, embedded SRAM and a PCM digital audio interface that enables transmission of audio data, according to Toshiba. The IC also integrates interfaces for USB1.1 and UART. Samples of the TC35651 chip have been delivered to key customers, and mass production is slated to start in Q1 of 2002, said the Japanese chip maker.
Meanwhile, Infineon said it has also begun to ship samples of its new Bluetooth RF transceiver to key customers, and it plans to start volume production in Q1. The PMB 6626 device integrates a 13-MHz oscillator cell and Gaussian pulse shaper. It provides a pure digital baseband interface to embedded applications, said the Munich company. The input sensitivity level of the RF transceiver is -91 dBm, said Infineon.
Pricing information was not released on the new ICs.
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