Sandbridge Technologies develops programmable cellphone chip

There's a new product on the block in the cellphone chip market that's hoping it can snag some mindshare among handset makers. Sandbridge Technologies' SB3010 chips are flexible enough to handle a wide range of protocols, multimedia and application processing, which would enable handset makers to built multifunction handsets using a single chip, driving costs down. The chips are programmed in the C language as opposed to assembly language, giving them a cost advantage because C developers are far easier to come by, as well as giving the handset makers and mobile operators greater ability to actually define what functions they want on the chips. Because of the expense that would be involved in switching architectures, phone vendors who have existing deals with chip makers are going to be hard to convince — but Sandbridge is hoping it might find a place in new products such as handsets that switch seamlessly between cellular and WiFi networks, as well as devices which integrate internet and multimedia such as digital cameras with persistent web connections.