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Slimming down
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21/10/2005
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Silicon suppliers are putting phone platforms through the pasta maker in an attempt to make them smaller and more highly integrated. The aim is to drive cost and size downwards. Despite this, the concept of a single chip phone has only recently become reality.
The reason isn’t purely financial, but close to it. Emerging standards versus integration difficulties meant that requalifying an entire chip when only a minor part of it had been changed would simply be too expensive. And at the time, minor changes were relatively frequent. In addition, the compromises involved in combining analogue and digital functions on the same substrate have historically meant the digital element suffers in terms of density and performance. The mobile phone is the epitome of digital advancement, so clearly there was no way it would be held back for the sake of its analogue counterpart.
Now, as things settle, standards become firmer and technology challenges are being overcome, suppliers can finally launch themselves at single chip solutions with gusto.
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Author
Philip Ling
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