®
®Bluetooth2002, The Worldwide Market
This is a very small sample of the material contained in the full study. Journalists, students, and other researchers my quote information from this Web page in whole or in part as long as they cite Micrologic Research as the source.
This is Micrologic Research’s third study of the Bluetooth market. Micrologic Research came to believe as early as 2000 that the Bluetooth market could not grow as fast as some of its more enthusiastic proponents were prognosticating. When time came to revise our original forecast at the end of the year 2001, we found that 2001 shipments had been very close to our prediction. We had originally forecast that 5.0 million Bluetooth chips would ship in 2001, and now that we have had time to analyze the data from 2001, we have revised our estimate of the shipments of chipsets that were destined for Bluetooth devices in 2001 down slightly to 4.8 million.[1]
However, given the slow economic conditions, we have lowered our expectations for shipments during the coming four years. We once believed that the current economic slowdown would be shorter than it has proved to be. The continued lack of an economic recover in most of the world has had a negative effect on all communications markets, and we believe that the Bluetooth market is not immune. In 2000, we forecast that the one-billion-chip mark would be surpassed in 2005. We now believe that that will not happen until 2006 as shown in the following graph.
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'00 |
'01 |
'02 |
'03 |
'04 |
'05 |
'06 |
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0.4 |
4.8 |
35.3 |
146 |
358 |
753 |
1,341 |
Source: Micrologic Research
Worldwide Bluetooth Chipset Unit Shipments
Bluetooth Chipsets by Application
As shown in the following table, Bluetooth2002 includes forecasts for 14 different market segments. We left most of the numbers out in this summary for the Web, but the complete forecasts are included in the report along with write-ups on each of the following segments.
Millions of Chipsets
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'00 |
'01 |
'02 |
'03 |
'04 |
'05 |
'06 |
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Cellular telephones |
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Cordless telephones |
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Computers, desktop & peripherals |
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Computers, handheld & PDAs |
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Computers, notebook |
0.1 |
0.4 |
1.7 |
5.5 |
13.7 |
32.0 |
52.7 |
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Game players |
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Headsets |
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Digital cameras |
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Entertainment devices |
0.0 |
0.0 |
0.3 |
6.7 |
20.6 |
62.5 |
122.1 |
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Hotel internet access nodes |
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Home & Office LAN nodes |
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Automotive |
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Medical equipment |
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Industrial equipment |
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Other |
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Total |
0.4 |
4.8 |
35.3 |
146 |
358 |
753 |
1,341 |
Source: Micrologic Research
Bluetooth Chipsets by Application
Bluetooth™[2] Suppliers
Bluetooth2002 includes short write-ups on 85 different companies that participate in the Bluetooth market. Included are semiconductor, systems, and software companies. We have included a few sample company write-ups in this summary.
A
lcatel Microelectronics has a ceramic ball-grid-array module for Bluetooth that includes most of the electronics on a single chip. The module is pictured in block-diagram form in the following figure. The module’s chip contains the radio, a baseband processor built around an ARM7 core, and firmware in ROM. Included in the module but outside the chip are RF filters, decoupling capacitors, and an optional antenna. RF shielding within the module protects the die from radio interference from the antenna.
Source: Alcatel
Alcatel’s Single-Chip Bluetooth Design
The chip is implemented in 0.25-micron CMOS technology and packaged in a ball-grid array. The chip includes the ARM7 MPU core, TTP Communication’s Bluetooth 1.0 stack software, optional application-layer software, memory, and an SPI bus plus UART and PCM interfaces. Alcatel says the software and chip support point-to-multipoint connections with complete scatternet functionality and permit multiple piconets within Bluetooth’s 10-meter communication distance.
Alcatel expects early production of its Bluetooth module to go to GSM cellular telephone manufacturers. Alcatel says the module will initially be installed in the telephone’s battery pack. This will allow users to buy a telephone with Bluetooth built in or allow them to buy a Bluetooth-capable telephone whose Bluetooth functionality can be enabled later by purchasing and installing a battery pack that includes the Bluetooth module. In the early years of the Bluetooth-GSM marriage, Alcatel says the Bluetooth CPU will run the Bluetooth protocol stack and the GSM CPU will run the application software layers.
Alcatel ran into some problems with RF element of its single-chip design, and while the problem was being resolved, the company switched its emphasis to a two-chip design in 2001. The two-chip design allowed the company to move the baseband to 0.13 microns while maintaining the radio semiconductor at 0.25 microns. The following figure is a block diagram of a reference design for a Bluetooth headset using Alcatel’s MTC-60180 baseband chip and a separate radio plus a voice codec and a power-management chip. Alcatel says a headset built to this design has a talk time of three to five hours, a standby time of 100 to 150 hours, and an idle time of 1,000 hours.
Source: Alcatel
Alcatel’s MTB-60180-EBS-01 Bluetooth Headset Design
Alcatel is working with Zucotto Wireless (San Diego) to combine that company’s Xpresso Java native processor with Alcatel’s family of Bluetooth chips.
Alcatel has collaborated with TSMC to offer a single-chip Bluetooth solution that includes TSMC’s embedded flash memory. The flash memory enables customers to program their proprietary application layer software stacks and to modify them later as the Bluetooth specification evolves.
Computer Access Technology Corporation (CATC, Santa Clara, CA) was founded in 1992 and has developed a Bluetooth protocol analyzer called Merlina™ and a Bluetooth test generator called Merlin’s Wand™. Merlin’s Wand is an intelligent Bluetooth device that can be used as a verification and validation tester or as an engineering debug and analysis tool. The two pieces of test equipment were developed as a joint effort between CATC’s main design center in Santa Clara, CA and its newer San Diego design center. Through the Merlin’s Wand software interface, designers and test technicians can issue protocol commands and test sequences to analyze or validate designs to ensure compliance to the Bluetooth specification.
Merlin and Merlin’s Wand are combinations of hardware and Windows based application software for controlling the Bluetooth verification process. Merlin’s Wand can act as a standard Bluetooth master or slave within a piconet and can establish a piconet and send or receive data within the piconet. Merlin’s Wand can issue any selected Bluetooth command to a device under test.
Source: CATC
CATC Trace Display
Merlin’s Wand can operate independently or with CATC’s Merlin protocol analyzer. When it is used with the protocol analyzer, the user can control both devices through a single interface to capture the real-time results of the test sequences as is required by the Bluetooth SIG to provide evidence of product compliance to the specification. Merlin can capture all Bluetooth traffic within a piconet for analysis. The figure above shows captured data in a CATC Trace display on a Windows computer connected to the Merlin Protocol Analyzer through a standard USB interface. Additional features of Merlin’s Wand are:
Plug and Play USB connection between test system and test module.
External antenna can be removed to create wired piconet.
Can operate as either a Master or Slave device in a piconet.
Graphical user interface allows for easy selection of command parameters.
Wizard provided to reduce learning curve and memorization of command sequences.
Ability to control Merlin protocol analyzer directly from Merlin’s Wand software.
Test modes provide for all levels of the Bluetooth protocol.
Extensions provided to create and test higher level protocols such as OBEX.
Scripting capability allows for establishment of predefined test sequences.
System information screen reports detailed information about the device under test.
Ability to fully automate test sequences and store test results when used in conjunction with Merlin protocol analyzer.
In December 2000, CATC announced the release of software Version 1.4 for its Merlin Protocol Analyzer. The new software release brought the Merlin Analyzer into compliance with the new Bluetooth Version 1.1 specification. CATC also added Service Discovery (SDP) message viewing and Object Exchange (OBEX) protocol decoding to Merlin. These two additional protocol decoding and view levels allow users to display the captured packet traffic grouped into transactions.
New display filtering and hiding options were also added to enable users to hide traffic by protocol and device address and to display individual trace levels or groups of levels. These options permit users to selectively modify the display of previously captured traffic to optimize the quantity of information that they need to view and analyze to address an issue.
Piconet synchronization was enhanced in a number of areas including faster synchronization processes, display of paging traffic (traffic that occurs before a piconet is established), and the ability to maintain network synchronization when in sniff mode. The Merlin captures piconet traffic without being an active participant within the piconet. Therefore synchronization with the frequency hopping sequence and proper alignment with the master’s clock are essential to correctly capture piconet traffic. The new enhancements broadened the analyzer’s ability to capture essential information that developers are interested in seeing to verify their design performance.
The Timing Calculator dialog box was updated to include both throughput in bits-per-second and bit error rate in parts-per-million. Calculations are done for user selectable ranges of packets. The calculations can be made globally or the user can specify an active piconet member address to see the performance of the piconet relative to a specific device.
The new SuperGrid format of the Traffic Summary Report was implemented to let a user expand and collapse various portions of the summary and to immediately change the current trace location based on summary information. This capability allows users to navigate within the trace file and go to specific packets of interest when working with the Traffic Summary Report. Information is now also included on RFCOMM, TCS and SDP protocols.
S
iemens AG Österreich (Vienna, Austria) has developed several Bluetooth products including a Bluetooth module and its blue2net LAN access point. The SieMo S50037 module is shown in block-diagram form in the following figure. It is a Class 2 device that can operate as an HCI module in a system or switch to a stand-alone mode. It includes the firmware below the HCI level. Receive typical sensitivity is – 85 dBm with -81 dBm guaranteed.
Source: Siemens
Siemens’ SieMo S50037 Bluetooth Module
The module contains both the radio and the baseband processor, which is powered by an MPU and a DSP. Siemens says the module has enough processing power to run applications. The module requires a fair amount of external circuitry including a balun, a low-noise amplifier (LNA), an antenna switch, a crystal, and flash memory.
What is Bluetooth?
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology designed to enable electronic devices to communicate with each other without the need for cables. It uses frequency-hopping, spread-spectrum (FHSS) communication in the 2.4-GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band, in which unlicensed devices are permitted to communicate in almost all countries of the world. As many of our readers may have heard, Bluetooth takes its name from Harald Blåtland (Bluetooth), a Danish king born in 908 A.D. who united his country under Christianity.
Ericsson came up with the idea for Bluetooth, and an Ericsson-led consortium developed the technology. The original consortium members included IBM, Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba. A second group, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) was formed to promote the technology and already counted over one thousand members by January 2000 The original collation announced in 2000 that the founding companies plus 3Com, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, and Motorola would form the Promoter Group of the Bluetooth SIG to lead the SIG’s efforts.
When a new technology is announced, it usually takes years before products appear. With Bluetooth, it seems that almost every company that is capable of designing a semiconductor chip has published a roadmap of its Bluetooth silicon extending several years into the future. The chip roadmaps even include dates, capabilities, and silicon technologies. Scores of companies have announced products. If ten percent of those products are successful, the Bluetooth market will be enormous.
The cellular telephone industry including Ericsson has much to gain from Bluetooth, because it will make cellular telephones hands-free and thus less susceptible to regulation for use in automobiles. By removing the cellular telephone from the side of the user’s head, Bluetooth may also lessen the public perception of the health risk from exposing the user’s brain to the much higher levels of RF radiation that cellular telephones emit when compared to a Bluetooth headset and help cellular subscribers comply with increasingly common laws that prohibit the driver from holding a cellular telephone in one hand while attempting to drive with the other.
Makers of all sorts of other portable devices will also benefit from Bluetooth. For example, many of us carry a number of electronic devices with built-in databases, and it is difficult to keep them synchronized. Many business travelers have at least some contact and schedule information stored in memory in a cellular telephone, handheld computer, desktop computer, and possibly in a digital wristwatch. An appointment or a telephone number entered in the handheld computer does not automatically propagate to the other devices. With Bluetooth, anytime one of these devices comes into proximity with another, they will communicate and synchronize their databases to make sure that both devices contain the most recent information.
Bluetooth could do away with projectors in conference rooms. The presenter will be able to send the presentation over a Bluetooth network to the handheld or notebook computers of all listeners so that the listeners will be able to follow the presentation on their own computers, annotate it, and store it for future access.
Intel points out that business travelers will be able to send and receive E-mails more promptly. The traveler will be able to compose E-mails on a flight using a notebook or handheld computer. Upon arrival at the destination airport, when the traveler switches on a cellular telephone, the computer will contact the cellular telephone over a Bluetooth link, even if one or both devices are in the traveler’s briefcase. The computer will use the cellular telephone to connect to the Internet, send the E-mails, and download any new messages as the traveler walks through the airport towards the baggage-claim area. Bluetooth Internet connections will someday be available on the airplanes to enable the traveler to send and receive E-mails and browse the Web in flight.
[This is just the introduction of the Bluetooth technology discussion in the report, which goes into such matters as software layers, packet make-up, etc., all written in non-engineering language.]
[1] Note our careful choice of words. We only count as Bluetooth chipsets those that were shipped in 2001 and were destined for Bluetooth devices. If one includes all of the chipsets or partial chipsets that could have been used for Bluetooth but which were actually used in other 2.4-GHz applications or that were scrapped, one comes up with a number about three times as larges as ours. However, we do not believe that chips that ended up in the scrap barrel or RF transceivers that were used in cordless telephones instead of in Bluetooth should be counted as Bluetooth chipset shipments.
[2] Bluetooth is a registered trademark of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group.
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