National Semiconductor unveils GSM wireless phone chip

Chip vendor National Semiconductor made its entry into the mobile phone market today with the launch of a GSM transceiver chip.

At the Cebit show in Hanover, the company said the LMX3411 chip is the beginning of a whole range of technologies that it is developing for use in the wireless telephone market. Two prototype phones that use the transceiver chip are on display on the company's stand at the show. The LMX3411 is optimised for use in GSM 1800, GSM 1900 and E-GSM versions of World GSM standard.

National Semiconductor said because of higher integration the chip enables cost and size benefits as well as extended talk time.

"The transceiver chip is just the entry point," said Bill Stacey, vice president and chief executive of National Semiconductor's wireless products group. "As the technology evolves from today's GSM standards to GPRS, suppliers need to upgrade the whole back end to include both analogue baseband and digital baseband chips."

As data handling and packet data functions are added, the system will have to switch frequencies on the fly, he added.

"This means the lock time of the radio becomes critical. This will require upgrading of current systems designs as we have done with the LMX3411, with new baseband design and software to offer cost effective and reliable operation."

Samples of the chip are now available, with production quantities scheduledto begin shipping in May.