ST-Ericsson is a 50/50 joint venture created by bringing together ST-NXP Wireless and Ericsson Mobile Platforms, two of the world’s leading wireless semiconductor and platform companies, both with strong industry heritage.

STEricsson's portfolio is composed of several offerings for various segments in the wireless communication market. In this article, we examine the 6710 HSDPA module that features Linux support.

Modern smartphone architectures are moving towards very specialized multifunction modules or platforms that support various communication and multimedia standards in a single chip. While this integration increases the complexity of the module itself, the overall architecture much easier to implement since there are less components to interconnect. On the other hand, due to the smaller size of the resulting platform, one can hope that important power savings can also be achieved.

With the emergence of linux as operating system of choice for mobile platforms, the question one may ask is how do mobile platform vendors cope with the advances in operating systems. Android for instance is expected to gain substantial share in the mobile operating system war. Several telecom operators are planning to adopt it for their new handsets. Since Android is linux based os, the mobile platform provider needs to supply drivers for it. Since linux mobile devices were not popular in the past, mobile platform providers are not necessarily ready for it.

STEricsson realized the need for adapting to the recent changes in the mobile os trends. The 6710 HSDPA is a one of STEricsson's offerings that provides integrated functionalities for smartphones running linux-based operating systems.

STEricsson's 6710 is a 3G/HSDPA/EDGE solution for the value added services (VAS) 3G market.

The 6710 platform features the following communication and multimedia capabilities : EGPRS class 12, UL/DL 236/236 Kbit/s, DTM class 11. Single antenna interference cancellation (DARP). UMTS/FDD R6, UL/DL 384/384 Kbit/s. HSDPA 3GPP R6, category 8, DL 7.2-Mbits. Music decoding/encoding MP3, AAC, HW decode/encode MPEG 4/H.263/H.264/VC-1/DivX CIF 30 fps,Video streaming H.264/QVGA, 3-MPixel YUV, 5-Mpixel JPEG , etc..

This is what STEricsson says about linux support in the 6710 platform : ” The 6710X provides a common software platform for 2G, 3G, 3.5G, and TD-SCDMA. The solution combines an efficient modem, running on a real-time OS, with an application environment based on Linux. Both the RTOS and Linux kernel run on the same processor and are linked with a virtualization mechanism. The 3.5G modem is controlled via Linux drivers and AT-commands. The single-core approach, where modem and applications are combined on the same hardware, allows the building of considerably cheaper systems, as only one memory subsystem is needed. The single-core approach streamlines operations and also makes it easy to prototype software on a PC. The Linux operating system allows the customer to use generic platform services such as audio, multimedia, user interface acceleration, and connectivity. As well as the Linux kernel, it is possible to use many solutions that are based on open source alliances such as Android, LiMo, or any proprietary Linux solution providing state-of-the-art 3G features including video telephony, accelerated media, and customizable user interface”

• http://www.stericsson.com/
• 6710X brochure

Labels: wireless