CSR, is demonstrating the seamless coexistence of its Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies during London's Wireless Event at Olympia. The company's BlueCore4 Bluetooth technology and UniFi-1 Wi-Fi solution is shown to operate on the same board and will be demonstrated in four test scenarios. This demonstration is designed to highlight that CSR Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies can sit alongside each other in an end-product design with no effect on the quality of either wireless link, as well as on the host product.
The demonstrations will show: a VoIP call over a Wi-Fi link using a Bluetooth headset; streaming stereo music to Bluetooth headphones whilst simultaneously browsing the internet or downloading a track; receiving a phone call over a Bluetooth headset while surfing the internet; and finally, simultaneous transfer of files, one over Bluetooth and the other over a Wi-Fi link.
The demonstration will show that UniFi, complete with UMA compliant 17dBm radio frequency output power, will not interfere with, or be disrupted by, the synchronous Bluetooth HV3 packets, providing a suitable quality of service end to end. CSR has optimized UniFi with this usage scenario in mind, and employs all commonly used frequency / time domain coexistence schemes for other 2.4GHz wireless standards.
The UniFi-1 product family, which started sampling at the end of 2004, has also been designed specifically for easy integration into consumer electronic devices. The card features BlueCore4 ROM and UniFi-1 Portable, designed specifically for cellular phones and other pocket-sized devices. The single band (2.4GHz) 802.11b/g device features an exceptionally small chip-scale package, measuring only 6x6 mm, which incorporates the RF, modem, baseband and hard MAC (media access controller) in a true single-chip format. The chip architecture itself, coupled with the lack of external components required, ensure that the UniFi silicon offers extremely low power consumption, a low bill of materials (BOM) and superior Wi-Fi performance.
"Bluetooth technology has experienced mass adoption by consumers, especially in the mobile handset market but there are still some doubts in the industry over the coexistence issues between the Bluetooth radio and the addition of a Wi-Fi radio into such a small space," commented Simon Finch, VP of CSR's Wi-Fi strategic business unit. "This demonstration truly shows that when using CSR technology these concerns are no longer an issue and that CSR's BlueCore and UniFi happily coexist in situations such as music streaming or voice calls where the slightest degradation of quality would be noticeable to the consumer."