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by Ariel Moshkovitz, Texas Instruments
Many cell phone manufacturers are planning to gradually deploy Bluetooth in most - or all - of their phones in the next few years, an important milestone for the Bluetooth industry. It is now clear that Bluetooth is the main standard for short-distance wireless communications in the personal wireless arena, removing any threat from WiFi.  Even more significantly, the inclusion of Bluetooth connectivity in even entry-level phones means it will become widely available for mainstream end users.
Now the spotlight shifts to the real challenges facing the Bluetooth market, including finding the killer applications, reaching the mythical $5 solution threshold and simply defining a value proposition for all the players in the market, including product vendors, operators and end users.
Market Challenges
The first challenge facing the Bluetooth market is creating an environment that makes it beneficial for numerous companies to develop and market Bluetooth products. It is clear that the Bluetooth market will not be based on only a few killer applications, such as the initial hands-free car kits and headsets. Rather, the market will include a multitude of products, each tailored to the needs of a specific market segment, as typically happens in mature markets. Each such product will make a small contribution to the operator's average revenue per user (ARPU), but the accumulated revenues from all products over time should be significant.
From the potential product vendor's point of view, there are two main concerns: making a good business case, primarily in terms of price and time-to-market, and ensuring interoperability between all the various Bluetooth products.
Both of these challenges can be met with a low-cost Bluetooth solution that fulfills the needs of both cellular devices and accessories. Interoperability with other products comes from the maturity of the baseband and radio frequency (RF) technology of the Bluetooth solution and the successful integration with the protocol stack and applications.
Pricewise, wireless Bluetooth accessory products pose an even greater challenge than mobile phones. With a price tag of more than $200, the first Bluetooth products were naturally purchased only by "techies" and early adopters. In order to appeal to the mass market, such products must retail for substantially less than $100.
The challenge, then, is to provide inexpensive cutting-edge technology, while maintaining profitability.
TI's Bluetooth Solution
To help manufacturers meet these challenges, Texas Instruments is providing Bluetooth solutions focused on the specific needs of various wireless terminals, all at the lowest possible cost. Building on an extensive wireless heritage and a unique state-of-the-art digital RF signal processing architecture, TI developed and is offering the BRF6100 Bluetooth chip. At less than $4 for a complete solution, the BRF6100 enables mobile phone vendors to add Bluetooth connectivity to even their most cost-sensitive mainstream products. As with any other mature market, TI believes that as the Bluetooth market matures, tailored solutions focused on specific applications will be key to market growth.
Making its debut at the Bluetooth Congress in Amsterdam in June 2002, the BRF6100 single-chip Bluetooth solution set new cost, power consumption and solution size standards. But TI didn't stop at the silicon level. The BRF6100 comes fully optimized for cellular applications, supporting a seamless interface to TI's OMAP application processor, the defacto standard in the cellular domain for next-generation applications, as well as to GSM/GPRS/3G chipsets from TI. The chip is fully interoperable with all the leading Bluetooth protocol stacks.
The BRF6100 also uses Digital Radio Processing (DRP) technology in the RF portion of the chip, which eliminates the need for analog functions like varactor, analog loop filters, limiters and filters. That helps reduce the chip size, which contributes to keeping chip costs down.
TI also collaborated with IXI Mobile so that cellular accessories such as headsets, instant messaging terminals and the wide range of terminals supported by IXI's Personal Mobile Gateway (PMG) platform can take full advantage of BRF6100 features. Those features include direct connection to battery (enabled by an internal voltage regulator), ultra-low power consumption in both active and standby modes, and support for all Bluetooth low-power modes.
Additionally, the BRF6100 gives the designer access to internal and external memory resources, as well as to the available MIPS of its internal ARM7 processor, enabling a cost-effective solution.
Bluetooth can and will become ubiquitous in short-distance wireless connectivity in the next few years. As most phones gradually incorporate Bluetooth connectivity, many new Bluetooth-enabled products will be launched. They will interoperate with the phones and one another, providing new functionality and end-user experiences. In addition, they will make a substantial contribution to operators' ARPU through newly generated traffic, motivating operators to boost the availability and use of these devices.
In short, the challenges facing the Bluetooth market will be met.
Ariel Moshkovitz is worldwide short distance wireless marketing manager for Texas Instruments.
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