Infineon puts GSM cellphone on one chip

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 24 May 2006 19:10

Business IT - Technology

See also: Infineon's chips are down, to 65 nanometres

Infineon Technologies claims to have successful tested the most highly integrated chip for mobile telephony, combining all of a mobile phone's essential electronic components in an area measuring 8 x 8mm.
Hermann Eul, head of Infineon's Communication Solutions Business Group, said "With [the new chip] E-GOLDvoice and fewer than 50 other electronic components, it's now possible for the first time to manufacture mobile phones that fit their entire GSM functionality onto a circuit board measuring [four cms by four cms].

"Manufactured using mature 130nm CMOS technology, the GSM chip is the first in the world to integrate on a single-chip not just the baseband processor and the RF part that carries voice between the handset and the base station, but also the SRAM memory and power management. Previously, the power management chip alone took up an area measuring 7 x 7mm.

Engineering samples are expected to be available in July.