ECD: What’s the primary focus right now in your strategy to develop application processors and connectivity silicon for embedded devices?
NALESNIK: For application processors, we see the market shifting away from general-purpose processors to high-volume, application-optimized devices. This is a result of the tremendous integration capacity that is delivered by manufacturing processes at 65 nm and below.
The apps processor is no longer a stand-alone device, but rather one element in an application-optimized System-on-Chip (SoC). For example, our new cellular chips include an application processor in addition to communication processors. This enables low-cost OpenOS phones such as Android[
] and Windows Mobile.
Another example is our single-chip personal navigation device, which integrates a processor with a GPS baseband and radio. We also see opportunities for high-performance, low-power multimedia coprocessors that enable advanced HD and compact camera features in cell phones.
For connectivity silicon, our strategy is to develop a suite of combination wireless chips to enable device manufacturers to mix and match the level of functionality they specifically require, all in one low-power, low-cost wireless chip.
The combo approach has numerous advantages: fewer chips, less board space, lower power, and lower cost per function. An additional benefit is that we can address coexistence – interference issues that arise with multiple wireless technologies in the same system, easing system design. By providing a modular family of chips integrating up to four wireless standards, product designers can choose a wireless connectivity chip that is optimized for their requirements.
ECD: From your perspective, how is the wireless landscape shifting, and which technologies are you betting on?
NALESNIK: The key trend is consumer and mobile devices harnessing the power of the Web through wireless data communications. From GPS-enabled location services to Web-enabled widgets on your TV to cameras that automatically sync your pictures and video to social networks, wireless data is a fundamental enabler of the mobile Internet.
In cell phones, data requirements are really exploding, going beyond what cellular networks can handle on their own, so carriers are looking for ways to offload data. One solution is to take advantage of Wi-Fi networks to augment cellular coverage. A combination of Wi-Fi and 3G in a cell phone means that data can be passed seamlessly between the two, choosing the most efficient connectivity standard to get data to the end user.
Broadcom has always focused on high-volume communication standards. In wireless, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, and GSM cellular are today’s primary market drivers and are our main focus. We are working on a number of exciting enhancements to these technologies that will continue to propel wireless into more and more products.
ECD: Given all that, what would you say is the one overriding trend that will reshape the way devices are developed in this new decade?
NALESNIK: Systems designers will need to consider the entire ecosystem in which their products operate, rather than designing a product as an island.
Great hardware products will potentially fail without an elegant user interface and a solution for seamless content discovery, acquisition, synchronization, and maintenance. Truly complete products will become the norm, and not just for consumer devices.
Designers will need to shift their focus outward to a greater extent than ever before. Do you really need an application to reside wholly within the device, or can you rely on getting data from the Web? How do you enhance your device’s capability with user data and content? What partner do you need to provide a more complete user experience? Answers to questions such as these are no longer someone else’s problem, especially if that someone is intended to be the user of your product.
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