Ring in 2007 with 'powerful' mobile phone

Freescale Semiconducter develops new technology that enables handsets to consume less power

Circa 2005. Shonali Dasgupta is listening to music on her mobile phone. Being a gadget freak, Shonali's handset is the latest that is available in the market and therefore cost her a fortune as well. But like many other gadgets, this one is a power-guzzler too. Needless to say that after a few hours of listening to blaring music, she is unable to use it to make an emergency call.

Now let's 'ring' in the year 2007. Shonali is listening to music on her mobile phone and continues doing so for eight ceaseless hours. This time, however, she's in for a surprise. Her gadget allows her to make calls even after eight hours of non-stop usage to listen to her favourite music, and incidentally, this time, it does not come at a lofty price either.

Sounds incredible but it sure is a reality bite from the future, courtesy the $5.7-billion Freescale Semiconductor Inc.

The global major in design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors has developed a new technology called Mobile Extreme Convergence (MXC) that will enable a mobile phone to consume less power and cost less as well. Motorola has sampled this technology and is likely to come out with devices based on MXC in 2007.

Ganesh Guruswamy, country manager of Freescale Semiconductor India Pvt Ltd, explains that there can be around 40 per cent savings in power with this technology. "It is developed around a single core modem instead of a dual one and is designed in such a way so as to consume less power."

While MXC is likely to be used primarily in mobile devices, it also has the capacity to turn various gadgets into a cellular device. For instance, the small chip (size of a postage stamp) can even turn a digital camera or an MP3 player into a cellular device.

"It can also help in saving costs as MXC eliminates the need for stand-alone application processors in mobile devices and reduces the number of components on board to less than 100 as compared to 170-200 otherwise. It has a highly integrated platform," Guruswamy says, adding that he, therefore, predicts that the mobile devices market may see handsets below the $20 price tag as well.

Incidentally, Freescale's centre of excellence in (System on Chip) SoC integration and IP (intellectual property) design in India has led the development of the baseband, design specification and validation for MXC technology. The centre employs around 500 engineers at Noida and started driving the chipsets part of MXC architecture in 2004.

At present, the design centre in India is one of the largest that Freescale has globally, as it works in all the three areas that the company operates in "� transportation and standard products, networking and computing systems and wireless and mobility systems.

"We expect it to become the largest design hub for Freescale in the near future," Guruswamy says.