August 31, 2007
Short-range Bluetooth and CSR’s long reach
Bluetooth is getting smarter, according to the British company that dominates the market for the short-range wireless chips.
John Scarisbrick, chief executive of Cambridge Silicon Radio, produced as proof his Jawbone, made by San Francisco’s Aliph, on a visit to our office.
The high-end mobile earpiece depends on CSR’s Bluetooth chip, but the Cambridge, UK company has also crammed digital signal processors and other features onto the silicon that improve voice quality and battery life.
In Sony’s PlayStation 3 Bluetooth headsets, CSR has tweaked its software to eliminate any delay between something exploding on screen and players hearing the sound. The same low-latency derivative of Bluetooth will power headsets for portable media players to ensure accurate lip-syncing between video and audio.
The Bluetooth standard itself has enjoyed several upgrades between the 1.0 and 2.1 version. 2.0 added the stereo capability and 2.1 eliminates the need for inputting a pin code to pair devices – instead, just putting the two in proximity to one another makes them assume a connection.
Bog-standard Bluetooth chips now cost only $1 - $2, which is why CSR is trying to add value with extra processors and software. It is also expanding into Wireless USB chips and ultra low power Bluetooth, which could add features such as remote-control functions to phones.
CSR has 60 per cent of the Bluetooth market, with its nearest rivals Broadcom and Texas Instruments of the US taking 20 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.
Mr Scarisbrick’s visit to Silicon Valley to meet investors made him realise CSR was still only a small voice in America’s ear, but he was able to point out with some satisfaction that they were probably hearing about it through one of the 85 per cent of Bluetooth headsets that contain CSR’s chip.
