National Semiconductor Grabs Onto CMOS Bluetooth

Enabling your washing machine to talk to your PDA and your PDA to talk to your computer shouldn't involve cables. National Semiconductor figures that its two-chip chipset design will enable wireless communication between consumer devices like information appliances, cellular phones, PCs and peripherals. The chipset consists of the LMX5250, a Bluetooth radio, and the LMX5100, a baseband/link manager chip with an on-board RISC processor core and Flash ROM. Both are manufactured in 0.25 micron CMOS. The products are a result of National's February acquisition of innoCOMM. National will demonstrate the chipset and other Bluetooth product offerings at the Bluetooth Congress in Monte Carlo. The LMX5250 is a 2.4GHz transceiver that uses an advanced radio architecture to support Bluetooth communication with very few additional components required. Features include advanced power management and 2V supply voltage for low power consumption, internal radio calibration circuits, and a serial interface for control and data communication. The LMX5100 offers on-chip support for Bluetooth HCI transport layer interfaces that include USB, UART, CAN, SPI and Microwire, as well as PCM linear, u/A Law and CVSD compressed audio. Samples of the chipset will become available this month. National hopes that mass production will begin by the end of the year.