December 12, 2001
Single Ubicom Chip Interfaces With Any Of Its Partners' Baseband Modules To Form Industry's Lowest Cost Bluetooth Ethernet Access Point
Ubicom, Inc., a leader in providing Internet Processors and networking software that enable ubiquitous communication, today announced a complete Bluetooth(TM) Ethernet access point platform. Implementations of the platform, with a sub-$30 bill of materials, are being demonstrated at the Bluetooth Developers Conference in San Francisco this week in the booths of three of Ubicom's partners, Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), Oki Semiconductor and Zeevo, Inc. In addition to the access points being shown at the Developers Conference, the company said that Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERICY) point-to-multipoint modules are also supported.
Based on Ubicom's software implementation of the Bluetooth(TM) technology and networking protocols running on the company's single-chip IP2022 Internet Processor, the platform is a reference design that allows OEMs to quickly and cost-effectively create access point devices that link users of Bluetooth-enabled PDAs, mobile phones and laptop computers to Ethernet local area networks (LANs) and the Internet.
With a Bluetooth/Ethernet access point, mobile users can automatically be connected to a wired network, and all of its resources, any time they come within range of an access device, known as the "hot spot." The access point device senses the presence of the mobile unit and immediately performs all of the connection and synchronization activities needed to create a link to the network. The small form factor and low cost of the Ubicom reference design will allow OEMs to integrate access points into a wide range of products that can benefit from having networking capabilities, from LAN bridges and print servers to automobiles.
"Because our solution is in software, we can easily tailor it for anyone's development requirements, and the support we've received from our current partners is making us the de facto industry standard for Bluetooth Ethernet access point designs," said Bulent Celebi, President and CEO of Ubicom. "Using our 'software system-on-a-chip' technology, our customers can now build access points that basically consist of two active components and the requisite connectors, with a bill of materials that can be less than $30. These price points will enable broadband access everywhere, from hotel rooms and homes to factories, warehouses, office complexes, airport terminals and even bus stops."
Ubicom Reference Design Overview
The Ubicom reference design consists of only two active components, an IP2022 Internet Processor chip and a Bluetooth baseband/RF module, that are supported by external memory, capacitors, resistors and connectors. Software implementations of the Bluetooth, Ethernet, and Internet Protocol (IP) stacks are programmed into the on-chip flash memory of the IP2022, together with the access point application software. The stack implementations also support Ethernet (including both the MAC and PHY functions) and the complete suite of Internet protocols. Support for the 802.11b and HomePlug interfaces is under development to supplement the Ethernet capability.
Ubicom created its own Bluetooth stack, ipBlue(TM), to take full advantage of its Internet Processor. "When we say embedded, we mean embedded," said Darrell Burns, Vice President of Engineering at Ubicom. "At a code size of only 24K bytes, ipBlue is one of the densest implementations on the market. Such code economy not only reduces BOM costs dramatically, but also improves performance. Our access point's transfer speed approaches 40 kilobytes per second, also one of the top speeds in the market."
The IP2022 interfaces with the Bluetooth module by means of Ubicom's HCI (Host Controller Interface) software, which resides in the IP2022 and provides the link between the Bluetooth stack and the baseband controller. The HCI is optimized for use for any of Ubicom's Bluetooth partners, which currently include Ericsson, Motorola, Oki, Zeevo, and Signia Technologies.
Ubicom Technology
The software modules that are the heart of the Ubicom access point reference design are part of the company's ipModule(TM) embedded software product line, which runs on the company's IP2022 high-performance Internet Processor chips. The IP2022 includes flash memory and RAM and software-configurable communications blocks that support more than eleven different physical layer interfaces, all on a single chip. The IP2022 instruction set and architecture are optimized for processing networking packets directly in memory, which improves performance while reducing cost and power requirements. The IP2022 is ideally suited to network connectivity applications, and can be programmed, and reprogrammed, using the ipModule software to create true single-chip software system-on-a-chip solutions for a wide range of device-to-device and device-to-human communication applications.
Price and Availability
Ubicom's Bluetooth Ethernet access point reference design is available now for qualified customers and co-development partners. The total price of all the components required to implement the design is about $30 in volume. A software license fee will also apply.
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