Read in telecoms.com

IP and core network equipment vendor Cisco has pulled the plug on its WiMAX base station operation, further highlighting the ill health of the sector.

Cisco has been stepping up its game in the telecoms sector ahead of the shift to all IP next generation networks, since it missed the boat during the rollout of 3G. The US company has a presence in both the WiMAX and LTE sectors but more as a provider of packet core networking equipment as well as edge technologies like wifi and femtocells.

Well, make that only as a provider of core and edge infrastructure. “After careful review of our mobility strategy and investments, we have decided to discontinue designing and building new WiMAX base stations,” a company spokesman said this week.

Read the complete article.

SiTel Semiconductor today announced how its collaboration with Target Compiler Technologies led to the creation of customized audio DSPs for its SC14452 Green VoIP processor. The DSPs combine extreme energy efficiency with high processing performance, enabling industry-leading audio quality and power consumption. Key components of the SC14452 that won a 2009 Frost and Sullivan Green Excellence Award, the DSPs were developed using Target’s IP Designer retargetable tool suite.

Target’s tools allowed SiTel to develop application-specific Gen2DSPs including a C-compiler, which means customers can program the DSPs themselves. The DSPs operate at low frequency to minimize energy consumption, yet provide high processing power. The SC14552 features two of these DSPs, which together deliver 160 MIPS. At the same time, they help minimize power consumption, enabling in-call power figures below 600 mW.

 With these powerful DSPs on-board, the SC14452 delivers outstanding sound quality for crystal clear communications. It can support four concurrent IP connections, independent of the codec chosen. Currently supported codecs include G.711, G.729, G.722, G.726, iLBC and MP3. Highly integrated, this VoIP solution reduces the overall system bill of materials (BoM) for enterprise VoIP desktop phones and IP-DECT base stations. It features integrated DECT, CAT-iq, DECT 6.0 and KDECT support and a dedicated cryptography engine for complete call confidentially.

SiTel’s drive towards more advanced and flexible System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions is the reason behind the company’s choice of Target’s tools. Target’s IP Designer is the leading retargetable tool suite for the design, programming and verification of application-specific instruction-set processors (ASIPs).

About Green VoIP
Concerns over climate change and fossil fuel supplies have put energy efficiency of all products at the forefront of both consumer and government agendas. For example, the European Commission Regulation on ecodesign (implementing Directive 2005/32/EC) proposes limiting the standby power consumption of domestic and office devices initially to 2 W if the device has a display and 1 W otherwise. A future second phase will further tighten these limits to 1 W and 0.5 W. Similar legislation is currently making its way through Congress in the US.

To help customers respond to these concerns and regulations, SiTel launched the Green VoIP range in 2008. These energy-efficient ICs allow manufacturers to create VoIP solutions that are environmentally friendly and reduce electricity bills. The first Green VoIP product, the SC14450, reduced the net system power consumption for typical applications by 50% to around 800 mW during calls and 550 mW in idle mode. The next Green VoIP processor, the SC14452, pushed down power consumption even further to 550 and 350 mW respectively – meeting the most stringent proposed limits.

Almost a year ago we mentioned that it would be great to have CAT-iq/DECT products based on Android. At that time many thought that we were insane. It is good that Binatone and DSP have chosen for this direction.

DSP Group and Binatone, a Motorola Official Licensee and a leading consumer electronics firm, announced today that Binatone has chosen DSP Group's XpandR chipset for its multimedia cordless home phone powered by Android(R). The Motorola phone will be available Q3 2010 in the U.S.

The Motorola HS1001 cordless phone offers Internet services such as e-mail and web browsing, via local Wi-Fi connectivity, and a touch screen interface with a virtual keyboard. DSP Group's XpandR chip set, the world's only system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution supporting both Wi-Fi and DECT 6.0, powers cordless communications and a full spectrum of multimedia applications for the home phone.

read in connectedplanetonline.com by John McDonald

As CAT-iq offers ultra low power solutions for smart grid we found this article relevant for you.

Creating a smarter grid is the “checkered flag” our industry has been eyeing for years — long before the term “smart grid” was coined. We’ve developed the technology and assembled the pieces, but deployment has been confined to local exits from the slow lane.

Now, with stimulus funding and increasing consumer awareness, it’s time to move smart grid into the express lane. We have a phenomenal opportunity to accelerate smart grid deployment, and we’ll need a strategic road map in place to optimize the integration of smart technologies into our infrastructure. We also need to shift gears from traditional “siloed” processes to a strategic, holistic drive toward energy delivery.

Driving holistic strategies
The strategic road map to a smarter grid starts with open, collaborative strategies from key drivers of smart grid solutions.

Read the complete article.

John D. McDonald, P.E., is an IEEE Fellow and past president of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES). He is also a member of IEC Technical Committee (TC) 57 and Working Groups (WGs) 3 and 10, the VP of Technical Activities for the U.S. National Committee (USNC) of CIGRE, and the past chair of the IEEE PES Substations Committee. Additionally, Mr. McDonald is the General Manager of Marketing for GE Energy T&D.

WCDMA handset semiconductor revenue will see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 10% between 2009 and 2014, exceeding $30 billion by 2014. Overall handset semiconductor revenue will see a more moderate five-year CAGR of 2.1%, as semiconductor revenue for CDMA and GSM handsets declines throughout the forecast period, according to market research firm In-Stat.

The new In-Stat research found the following:

LTE Applications/Multimedia processor revenue will exceed $400 million by 2014.
TD-SCDMA handset semiconductor revenue is accelerating in 2010, increasing more than five-fold compared with nascent 2009 levels.
On a regional basis, the Latin America region will see among the most significant growth in WCDMA handset semiconductors, exceeding the Middle East & Africa (MEA) by 2011, and the North American and Eastern European regions by 2012.

The research, “Worldwide Cellular Phone Components 5-Year Forecast” , covers the worldwide market handsets and handset semiconductors. It includes:

5-year forecasts (2009–2014) for handsets, handset revenues, and handset semiconductor revenue by region and technology type (TD-SCDMA, LTE, WCDMA, CDMA, and GSM).
5-year attach rate forecasts (2009–2014) for phones with:
Wi-Fi dual-mode
Analog TV tuners
Bluetooth
Cameras
GPS
Accelerometers
Pico projectors
Touchscreens

Handset semiconductor revenue forecasts by function by technology type:
Digital Baseband Processor
Analog Baseband
Apps/Multimedia Processor
Memory
Radio, Power Amplifier
Other ICs & Discretes

TES Electronic Solutions announced the availability of MAGiK, a media and graphics innovation kit. MAGiK is an open platform for rapid application and product development ideal for applications such as home automation, entertainment systems in transportation and industrial displays.

MAGiK leverages TES' competence of integrating technologies in graphics, multimedia, electronic design services and manufacturing. The innovation kit is a combination of a flexible production ready system module based on a Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) OMAP3530 applications processor along with a generic I/O board, offering a host of multimedia connectivity and expansion to suite most embedded development requirements. The user interface, a key aspect in most products today is accelerated by the use of TES Guiliani HMI framework and tools. The Guiliani UI editor provides developers with a quick and easy way to create and deploy stunning visual effects using OpenGL® ES, and the framework is coupled with the powerful media framework OpenCORE™ to bring a host of media playback and recording features.  MAGiK is offered today with a choice of Linux, Windows® Embedded CE 6.0 or Android.

Typical applications for MAGiK are home media devices, museum AV guides, portable industrial measurement devices, building security, media phone with DECT, personal medical devices, portable GNSS displays and digital signage.

Click here for more information on MAGiK.