Intel: Internet-on-a-chip IC aims at cell, iA fusion

By Patrick Mannion
iApplianceWeb
(02/25/03, 02:06:39 AM EDT)

MANHASSET, N.Y. - Intel Corp. has announced its long-awaited "Internet-on-a-chip" device featuring the integration trifecta of an Xscale processor, DSP and flash memory. Code-named Manitoba, the processor will be aimed at GSM/GPRS mobile gear and will compete against products from dominant incumbents Texas Instruments and Motorola.

Manitoba was developed with a host of partners, including Analog Devices, RF Micro Devices, TTPCom and Electrobit. Samples of its initial implementation, the PXA800F, are available now.

The PXA800F integrates a 312-MHz Xscale applications processor with 4 Mbytes of on-chip flash and 512 kbytes of SRAM; and a 104-MHz baseband DSP with 512 kbytes of flash and 64 kbytes of SRAM. A power-management hardware audio codec obtained from Dialog Semiconductor has also been integrated. The Layer 1 protocol was internally developed by Intel for the DSP, while Intel opted to use TTPCom's mature GSM/GPRS Layer 2/3 protocol stack to run on the Xscale. The chip is built in a 0.13-micron process and integrates a plethora of I/O options, according to Dennis Sheehan, director of marketing for Intel's PCA components group. It will cost $35 each in quantities of 10,000. The price is intended suit the target market of $100 to $200 smart phones and low-end PDAs.

"For the market projections [for smart phones and PDAs] to become reality, the trick will be to make the functionality interesting to the user and get it into the mainstream price points," Sheehan said. "If it stays at the high-end . . . it won't drive this kind of volume. So we have to drive it into the mainstream segment and get users excited about it."

The chip is packaged in a 13-mm-square BGA that will enable a talk time of 3 hours when combined in a system with Analog Devices' OthelloOne direct-conversion front-end chip, Sheehan said. RF Micro provided the power amplifier and Electrobit will produce a reference design featuring the PXA800F in the second quarter of this year, Sheehan said.

The PXA800F "is a really important step for Intel," said Jeff Bier with Berkeley Design Technology Inc., a DSP technology analysis firm. "It's a very complex handset solution and not something you just whip up overnight. They're demonstrating their commitment and [showing] they're serious." Bier said Intel's fabrication expertise and resources will give established players like TI and Motorola, which compete in the same market, a reason to look over their shoulder. "[Intel] seems to have pulled it all together here," he said.

For more information on this product, go to www.intel.com.

But for instant access to more informationabout the issues, products and technologies mentioned in this story, click on the flashing icon in the upper right hand column on any page on this site. It will take you to an alternate view of iApplianceWeb based on an associatively-linked XML/Java Web map that can be used to search for any topic published here over the last 12 months.

This map allows any story on the site to be accessed by date, by category, by title, or by keyword, with results displayed within seconds either as a list of possible hits or with specific Web pages displayed below the map, which is adjustable depending on the number of hits and the number of links.

For technical article coverage, go to the  iAppliance Web Views  page and access the EETimes In Focus maps there to browse or quickly search for all articles on a particular topic since the beginning of 1999.