Sandbridge Technologies develops programmable cellphone chip
posted July 25th 2005 4:44PM
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.
In C ??
won't that make it easy to hack?
There is a better solution than this "chip"...
TechnoConcepts (TCPS)
http://www.technoconcepts.com/
The just did a demo to big names below (LG, Samsung, etc)
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050714/145388.html?.v=1
Approximately 40 representatives from 16 different wireless communications companies, including ETRI (Electronic and Telecommunications Research Institute), SK Telecom, SK Telesys, LG Electronics, Inc., Samsung Venture Investment Corp., Axesstel R & D Center, Ltd., Bellwave Co., Ltd., C & S Co., Ltd., Cablerex, Inc., Hyunseo Data Communications, Ltd., Kisan Telecom Co., Ltd., Megacraft Company, Ltd., Mobianet Corporation, System Mecca Company, Ltd., as well as research and development engineers from the South Korean government viewed the demonstration.
"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"
what? you can program any microcontroller in c, you just need a c compiler for that platform -- which invariably exists. they're just saying that they wrote their own compiler software -- which is what any startup company expecting to make reasonable sales of their mcus would do. for the more popular, established mcus, there are even extra compiers written by enthusiasts/ resellers that allow you to write in other languages like basic. they would therefore have to write their own compiler to even have a hope of competeing.
ch424
I think that ANY chip that pre-loads configurations, even if it covers 100% of the current available frequencies and protocols, will be outdated by the time it hits the market. Things are changing so quick in the telecommunications industry, that this type of chip (Sandbridge) is not the Holy Grail. We need a lower-level solution - TSR by TCPS.
None