Intel Announces Wireless Chip for Cellphones

Intel Corporation has announced a new cellular processor that uses advanced "wireless-Internet-on-a-chip" technology. The highly integrated microchip is the first to combine the key components of today's cellular phones and handheld computers onto a single piece of silicon - promising to bring advanced functionality, longer battery life and more innovative phone designs to mainstream phones. 

Called the Intel PXA800F cellular processor, it is a key component of the Intel Personal Internet Client Architecture (Intel PCA), Intel's development blueprint for designing wireless handheld communication devices that combine voice communications and Internet access capabilities. The Intel PXA800F cellular processor is built using a single process to place all key components onto one chip using the industry's leading .13-micron silicon manufacturing technology. Today, feature-rich phones that include integrated camera, color screen, and games have multiple components, and represent the most expensive and sophisticated portion of the cell phone market segment. However, history has demonstrated that when more capabilities are put on a single chip, the functionality of the device increases and production costs decrease. By combining multiple functions through silicon integration, Intel has delivered a cellular processor with higher performance, lower power, and increased reliability that increases the capabilities of a mainstream, data-enabled cell phone. 

The Intel PXA800F cellular processor features a high-performance, low-power processor running at 312 MHz based on the Intel XScale technology with four megabytes of integrated Intel On-Chip Flash memory and 512 kilobytes (KB) of SRAM. In addition, the Intel PXA800F cellular processor includes a 104 MHz signal processor using the Intel MicroSignal architecture with 512 KB of integrated Intel On-Chip Flash memory and 64 KB of SRAM, resulting in a complete system on a single chip for advanced GSM/GPRS cellular networks. The Intel PXA800F cellular processor is sampling today with production volumes expected in the third quarter of 2003. Products using the new processors will be available later this year, or early next year. The Intel PXA800F cellular processor has a suggested list price of $35 in 10,000 unit quantities. 

(CNS)