ARTICLE MARCH 2003

Boost to mobile communications

3G mobile phone networks are at last coming to the market with public availability initially in the Far East: Korea has demonstrated 3G services and Japan was the first country in the world to launch full 3G services. At least two European countries have already launched 3G networks ? including Italy and, since last month, the UK.

There could be up to three types of technology deployed in 3G GSM globally. These systems are being harmonised to ensure they are compatible, can co-operate, and will accept multi-mode handsets. This integration of systems and services will give users worldwide roaming. Overall, 3G WCDMA radio-access technology has already been selected by more than 100 licensees worldwide.

Technical problems caused by an initial lack of widespread network coverage ? making it necessary to switch from 3G to 2G and back again seamlessly ? have not helped the introduction of some new 3G systems. There is also a clear need for terminals with enhanced interoperability and better user interfaces. Development of viable WCDMA technology has also taken longer than expected.

However, the GSM Association has re-emphasised the importance of WCDMA and its commitment to this as the basic technology for 3G GSM. It is seen as the global choice of operators because of its robust capabilities, wide-ranging multimedia possibilities and vast potential for economies of scale. No other standard is as open and no other standard can provide a seamless global evolution from current GSM technologies with such wide support from operators around the world.

WCDMA offers data rates up to 100 times those of current GSM networks. It can support mobile/portable voice, images, data and video communications at up to 2 Mb/s with local area access or 384 Kb/s for wide area access. It is based on code division multiple access ?spread spectrum? technology that literally spreads the information contained in a particular signal over a much greater bandwidth than the original signal.

New 3G networks are built on the success of GSM, and on the GSM operators? existing investment in infrastructure. The first stage of service and network evolution has been from GSM systems, through the implementation of GPRS, to commercial UMTS/3G networks, a process that is running almost two years behind original targets.

The evolving GSM standard meets many of the original goals of UMTS ? such as global roaming and personalised service features. The major differences in UMTS are: a new RF interface operating at around 2 GHz which can offer superior performance to earlier generations of GSM in terms of data rates and capacity, and a packet-based network architecture which supports both voice and data services. An additional benefit of 3G systems is their complementarity with wireless LANs ? much effort has gone into investigating the interoperability of terminals.

MEDEA+ work in this area includes development of improved multifunctional terminals and base stations as well as better performing chip and electronic design automation technology, offering lower power consumption and shorter times to market.

Providing wideband wireless access to all types of information ? including multimedia and other data ? requires not only mobile devices but also suitable UMTS/3G GSM base stations. The goal of the MEDEA+ A104 SCUBA project is to develop innovative, inexpensive functional elements for base stations and their connection to the worldwide communications network. As these demand a level of quality that cannot be provided simply by increasing the processing power and bandwidth of conventional chips, the partners are developing new processing architectures to deal with the complex high-speed signal/data processing and routing requirements.

The emergence of broadband wireless local area network (WLAN) technology offers a major opportunity for European industry. WLAN is becoming increasingly attractive because it supports mobile services, portable terminal interconnectivity and anytime, anywhere connections. With access points that can be installed in public locations such as airport terminals, main railway stations and hotels, as well as in the user?s workplace or home, wireless systems could become central to the future communications needs of both corporate and small office home office (SOHO) users.

The MEDEA+ A105 UniLAN project is therefore developing building blocks for a suitable common wireless terminal. The project is looking at system architectures to achieve high data rates with good quality of service and high security. Efforts are also being made to improve aerials to handle the multiple reflections found in homes and offices and so enhance data rates and reduce interference.

Fragmentation in handheld multimedia terminals means development and manufacturing costs are high, with long lead times between product development and launch. The MEDEA+ A207 Pocket Multimedia project set out to establish a common platform for mobile multimedia applications within a shared development environment for low-power, highly portable devices, reducing development costs and speeding time-to-market. The resulting silicon application platform provides support for developing and manufacturing cost-effective handheld Internet communications devices. The platform makes use of an innovative low-power multimedia architecture that combines a software computing approach with dedicated multimedia silicon modules. Potential connectivity includes Bluetooth wireless standards compatibility with UMTS/3G GSM standards.

Looking even further ahead, the MEDEA+ A107 4G-RADIO project is developing digital baseband, analogue and radio frequency (RF) solutions, with circuit libraries and re-configurable digital building blocks, to implement the physical layer of a wide range of wireless communications applications using various modulation schemes. The objective is to continue European leadership in 3G, develop competitive solutions to interconnect with wireless systems that include 2G, 3G, Bluetooth and HiperLAN ? where cost, size and autonomy will be the key factors for commercial success ? and prepare solutions especially with respect to security for future 4G wireless communications technology. These solutions should considerably shorten development time for chipsets and system-on-chip (SoC) solutions.

And, on the technology side, mobile telephony is also the driving force in the market for radio frequency (RF) integrated circuits ? another area where Europe holds a global lead. There is a constant demand for ever-higher bandwidth and transmission rates ? from 2.2 GHz for UMTS/3G GSM, to 20 GHz or more for future systems. The MEDEA+ T204 ASGBT project now finished, contributed to the development of high speed mixed RF-analogue chips required, using bipolar CMOS (BiCMOS) technology based on silicon germanium (SiGe) as a power saving alternative to gallium arsenide (GaAs). The goal was to develop bipolar and BiCMOS technologies for cost-effective production of the chips required for portable terminals handling voice, image and data transmission.