Consumers are increasingly demanding more functionality and multimedia capability from portable consumer electronics (CE) technology. This functionality convergence is driven by consumers’ need for convenient always-on wireless connectivity and the desire to consume multimedia content of their choosing and at a time convenient to them.

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With today’s multiplicity of connectivity standards and methods to consume audio and video content, portable CE manufacturers face significant challenges trying to deliver feature-set convergence, convenience of use, and consumer affordability. Multiple wireless technologies, a small device form factor, long battery life, and an intuitive user interface must all be delivered at a price point acceptable to the mass market, and especially so given the current economic environment.

The current architecture to support wireless and feature-set convergence in portable devices involves the integration of multiple ICs. Each new wireless application to be supported—cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, near-field communications (NFC), WiMAX, broadcast TV, radio, and others—typically requires the addition of another IC, or, at a minimum, an extra block of intellectual property (IP) on an existing chip. The former solution will necessitate more board space, and the latter will require an IC redesign and a new manufacturing cycle.

Both options will add cost to the solution and incur a time-to-market latency. To make matters worse for the CE manufacturer, although markets are global, implementations of wireless standards may not be. Also, markets often exhibit significant regional variations. This means that manufacturers cannot easily deploy a global platform solution to leverage economies of scale and deliver the lowest-cost solution.

As wireless technologies and consumer functionality demands continue to evolve, and in combination with the growing consumer popularity of the ultra-portable netbook PC and the media-rich feature-phone, manufacturers will need to devise a new approach to delivering convergence.

A Different Method

An alternative approach to addressing wireless convergence and consumer demand for media-rich functionality in CE devices is now gaining early commercial traction. Known as the software modem, this technique has the potential to simultaneously address the form-factor and the cost constraints of delivering functional convergence.

The software modem concept is simple. A reconfigurable RF front end is coupled with a digital baseband implemented entirely in software rather than in the traditional form of a digital IC. If the front end has been designed with sufficient reconfigurability, then the inherent flexibility of software can deliver a true multi-standard wireless modem, giving consumers the converged wireless and feature-set choice they are demanding, but at a potentially paradigm-shifting price point.