1. The Single Chip Wireless Solutions Company

2. Introducing BlueCore2-External, the second generation Bluetooth solution
Cambridge Silicon Radio
Unit 300 , Science Park,Milton Road
Cambridge, CB4 0XL, United Kingdom
Tel:

3. The Future of the End-User Market For Bluetooth Devices
The market for Bluetooth devices will expand rapidly in the next few years
Bluetooth will become an important selling feature in a huge variety of products
Customers will increasingly demand more than just basic Bluetooth features, adding:
Security
Interoperability
Performance
Product development cycles will be compressed bringing the need to reuse technology from previous product generations as much as possible
Prices for end user devices will be forced down
The life cycle of new devices will get shorter

4. What Kind Of Characteristics Will Be Needed For Success?
Short Time To Market: for maximum market responsiveness
Fully Featured Bluetooth implementation: to get the maximum end-user value from Bluetooth
Low cost base: to be profitable in a competitive market
A focus on value added features: To differentiate customer end products

5. How Can BlueCore2-External Help?
Time To Market:
Easy to pass qualification tests
Can be supplied with compatible Host Software
Full RF designs and application support provided
Bluetooth Features
The most functional base-band in the industry
Industry leading protocol firmware
Full support for ACL, SCO, USB, Piconet, Scatternet and DFU
Unique Security features
Low Cost
CMOS technology
Minimum external components: for class 2 operation Bluecore2-External requires just a single Balum, no LNA, and no TX/RX switch.

6. How Can BlueCore2-External Help?
All this leaves you to focus on what is really important : creating attractive, fully featured end-user products:

7. BlueCore2-External: Features
BlueCore2-External is the latest Bluetooth solution from CSR
Single chip: radio and microcontoller are located on the same die
Industry standard CMOS silicon (0.18mm process)
32kbytes of internal RAM
Support for up to 8Mbits of external Flash
Interfaces: PCM, USB, UART, I2C
0.5mm or 0.65mm ball pitch (6´6mm or 8´8mm package)
96 Ball VFBGA package

8. Focus On Time To Market Qualified
How can the new BlueCore2-External device reduce time to market?
Design: BlueCore2-External comes with full RF designs (including PCB layouts and detailed BOM)
Radio performance is excellent across the full industrial temperature range so it is easy to produce a device which passes all the Bluetooth qualification tests with ease
Host Software: CSR can supply host software suitable for PC or embedded platforms. This is pre-configured to work correctly with BlueCore2-External.
Qualified

9. BlueCore2-External - A CMOS RF engine that excels
Bluetooth Qualification test: Sensitivity: RCA/CA/02/C RCA/CA/02/C Output Power: TRM/CA/01/C
Blue Lines - levels needed to pass Qualification Tests
Outcome: BlueCore2 External operates within Bluetooth limits between -35 and 110°C
Circuit: CSR standard test circuit (details available)

10. Adjacent Channel Power
Bluetooth Qualification Test: “TX Output Spectrum -adjacent channel power” TRM/CA/06/C
Outcome - PASS
Transmit Power = 7dBm
Temperature=20°C Circuit: CSR standard test circuit (details available)
(1) Maximum allowed adjacent channel power (f=f0 + 2MHz).
(2) Maximum allowed adjacent channel power (f=f0 + 3MHz).

11. 20dB Bandwidth
Bluetooth Qualification Test: “TX Output Spectrum - 20dB bandwidth” TRM/CA/05/C;
Outcome - PASS
Transmit Power = 7dBm
Measurement bandwidth= 10kHz
Temperature=20°C Circuit: CSR standard test circuit (details available)
(1) Maximum allowed 20dB bandwidth.

12. Transmitter Eye Diagram
Optimum eye with limited Inter-Symbol Interferance
Transmit Power = 7dBm
Data: full DH5 packet including preamble (approx bits)
Temperature= 20°C
Circuit: CSR standard test circuit (details available)

13. Drift Test
Bluetooth Qualification Test: “Carrier Frequency Drift” TRM/CA/09/C
Red lines are the bounds for a test pass
Outcome: PASS
Transmit Power = 7dBm
Temperature=20°C
Circuit: CSR standard test circuit (details available)

14. Synthesiser Settling
BlueCore2 settles very quickly - before the output power is fully ramped up.
Bluetooth Qualification Tests: “Carrier Frequency Drift” TRM/CA/09/C ”Initial Carrier Frequency Tolerance” TRM/CA/09/C
Outcome: Pass
Transmit Power = 7dBm
Temperature=20°C
Circuit: CSR standard test circuit (details available)

15. Minimum Modulation Test
Bluetooth Qualification Test: TRA/CA/07/C “Modulation Characteristics”
Green lines are the bounds for a test pass
Outcome: PASS
Transmit Power = 7dBm
Temperature=20°C
Circuit: CSR standard test circuit (details available)

16. Maximum Modulation Test
Bluetooth Qualification Test: TRA/CA/07/C “Modulation Characteristics”
Average modulation must be between 140 and 175KHz.
BlueCore2-External average modulation = 165kHz
Outcome: PASS
Transmit Power = 7dBm
Temperature=20°C
Circuit: CSR standard test circuit (details available)

17. All RF Designs Included
Including:
Schematic
PCB Layout
Detailed BOM
Comprehensive application support

18. Host Software - Reducing Complexity
Bluecore2-External can be supplied with host side software:
Suitable for Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000
Standard Windows interface for ease of use
Can be OEM Branded
No additional software engineering necessary
BlueCore2 - the industry’s only truly complete Bluetooth solution

19. Prototyping With BlueCore2-External
Bluecore2-External is the first is the BlueCore2 family.
BlueCore2-External - the BlueCore2 radio and base-band IC used with external Flash memory device for flexibility and low cost
BlueCore2-Flash - the BlueCore2 radio and base-band together with integrated Mbit flash memory for small size and high flexibility
BlueCore2-ROM - BlueCore2 with firmware on integrated 4MbitROM for small size and lowest cost
BlueCore2-External can be used to develop software for the other devices:
External Flash can be reprogrammed very quickly
When software is ready customers can switch to BlueCore2-ROM for the smallest possible solution

20. Focus On Bluetooth Features
The first generation of Bluetooth products offer only basic point to point connections
Consumers will soon expect much more:
Security
Data Integrity
Multi-point features
Power Saving
Real world performance, e.g. interoperability and performance in noisy environments
Only vendors who supply these feature will prosper in the future highly competitive Market for Bluetooth devices

21. Security Security is important to prevent:
eavesdropping: with obvious implications
unauthorised access to networks: system managers can no longer rely on physical security
fraudulent use of other people’s cell ‘phones
malicious attacks

22. Security
Although these appear obvious, there are subtleties within Bluetooth which must be understood if a system is to be secure:
Not all devices have an input mechanism (computer mice, headsets etc). Therefore fixed PINs must be supported (and in fact are mandatory for several profiles), and must be stored securely
If a device can be cloned, then access is immediately open to any device it is paired with. So things like Bluetooth address and all keys must not be easily changed by the user once the module is made: without this feature someone can use your ‘phone and you’d never catch them!
Encryption must still work with power saving modes
The basis of the Bluetooth security is random numbers. These must be true random numbers, not pseudo random
Although DFU is highly desirable to allow upgrade, if not authenticated then a virus could render all Bluetooth devices unusable or even just destroy the security (for instance send the link keys to an account!)
Some devices require firmware to be downloaded from the host into device RAM at boot time. As well as having a large die size to accommodate all the RAM such devices are extremely vulnerable to attack from malicious code masquerading as legitimate firmware.

23. Security
To solve these issues CSR has taken great care, and offers the following unique and comprehensive features:
Full Bluetooth authentication and encryption, with the maximum length settable at module manufacture up to 128 bits
Broadcast encryption during Park mode
Fixed PINs in the LM
Two level access to the non volatile storage, with a security bit set at the end of manufacture
Link keys can optionally be stored in the SIM card of a cell phone rather than in the Bluetooth module
A proprietary (patent applied for) true random number generator. The sequence is different each time even after chip resets, and can never be predicted
Digital signature based on 1024 bit RSA for firmware upgrades. Each module manufacturer chooses his private and public keys independently, so no unauthorised firmware can be loaded by DFU

24. Data Integrity
L2CAP is supposed to be reliable through error recovery at baseband
Actually baseband error recovery is not 100% reliable, so it is impossible to completely escape the effects of
Interference
Extremes of range
The probability of corruption of L2CAP data under these conditions is shown in the following graphs:

25. Data Integrity - the probability of errors as a function of packet type
As can be seen, a naïve selection of packet type will result in corruption at L2CAP.
But some profiles (eg printer) assume that L2CAP is reliable - the Baseband must therefore make a good choice of packet type.

26. Data Integrity - the effect of bit error rate on bandwidth
Although one might at first think that the maximum data rate will always be achieved with long DH packets, it can be seen that this is not the case due to the re-try probability.
A good algorithm selects a packet type that simultaneously gives maximum data rate and best integrity

27. Channel Quality Driven Data Rate
Dynamic RF Power Control =
Channel Quality Driven Data Rate =
Can you
talk louder?
Can you
talk more slowly?

28. Data Integrity, conclusions
An algorithm that selects packet type solely on the amount data to be sent will cause data corruption
There is a mechanism built in to Bluetooth, Channel Quality Driven Data Rate (CQDDR), which solves range or constant interference issues if correctly implemented
Solutions without CQDDR will not be able to maintain high bandwidth connections in noisy, real world environments and will cause some profiles simply not to work
CQDDR is likely to become a mandatory part of the Bluetooth 1.1 spec in future
The connection manager or application (in the upper layer stack) can make intelligent tradeoffs between bandwidth and integrity, but only if it has access to packet and BER statistics. CSR provides these via bccmd (note this is made use of today in some more sophisticated applications)
Additional recovery from burst errors (due to interference) can be built into the baseband: this is an area where there are strong differences between implementations

29. Data Integrity - questions to ask a potential silicon supplier
What is the maximum data rate achievable using your device?
What is the aggregate data rate when transferring bi-directional data?
What is the aggregate data rate when transferring bi-directional data between multiple slaves?
How do these degrade in the presence of other piconets?
What is the guaranteed reliability at L2CAP with your system? What happens at range extremes?
Does your solution support Channel Quality Driven Data Rate?
Note: the ability of the upper stack to recover from L2CAP errors does have some relevance

30. Audio Features
BlueCore2-External has flexible A PCM interface which interfaces directly to devices such as:
Qualcomm MSM 3000/5000, (CDMA device with codec interface),
OKI MSM7705, (four channel µ/A-law codec),
Motorola MC145481, (8-bit µ/A-law codec),
Motorola MC145483, (13-bit linear codec),
Mitel MT93LI6 (Echo canceller).
This makes BlueCore2-External ideal for audio applications such as:
Cordless Telephone Base-stations
Audio Gateway Applications
Conference Calling Equipment

31. Multi-User features
Multi-User applications for Bluetooth look set to become very popular:
Shared printers for offices, airliners, trains etc
Network access points
Telephony systems

32. Multi-User features, Continued
Which Bluetooth features are necessary in order to serve these application?
Role Switching, from master to slave and vice versa
Ability to be discovered and connected to while already master of a piconet (I.e. a limited Scatternet)
Simultaneous data and voice
Received Signal Strength Indication and Power Control
Load balancing
Call hand off

33. Multi-User features, continued
Consider a network access point:
Role Switching, from master to slave and vice versa
Vital, to allow connection to be initiated by either the access point or the client computer
Limited Scatternet
Needed when initiating connection to a device which is already acting as a master
Allows device to be both a slave and a master
Usually necessary until role switch possible
This is much more important than being slave in two piconets
Received Signal Strength Indication and Power Control
needed to support load balancing
needed for call hand off, which allows roaming

34. Power Saving Modes The Bluetooth spec includes power saving modes
Park mode
Sniff mode
Hold mode
These are are essential for low power operation
Battery life will be a key differentiator between Bluetooth enabled end-user products
Sniff mode is essential for small battery powered peripherals like headsets, human interface devices while connected
Park mode is mandatory for many profiles

35. Power Saving Modes
Even devices without power constraints need to be able to support battery powered devices.
For example consider a mains powered, Bluetooth enabled PC:
A Bluetooth enabled Mouse or Keyboard needs to go into power saving mode,
This is only possible if the PC also supports Sniff
Thus a PC, an audio gateway or an access point must support Park and Sniff or they can’t be used with wireless mice, keyboards headsets or cell ‘phone handsets!
Bluetooth allows the low power device to use an inaccurate clock. Unless the Baseband design can accept and generate LMP Timing Accuracy Request and accept the specified 250ppm, then it is not Bluetooth compliant. We believe that many implementations are deficient in this regard.

36. Battery Life
Assuming that the Bluetooth silicon supports power saving modes, what other factors influence battery life?
Power Consumption usually stated as follows:
Current consumption during transmit
Current consumption during receive
Current consumption when idle or Parked
But the end user is concerned only with Battery Life, so in practice how does power consumption relate to battery life?

37. Battery life - duty cycle
Need to consider whole duty cycle:
PDA user:
Download web page (receive power consumption) seconds
Read web page (either parked or in Sniff mode, latency ~1 to 2 seconds) seconds
Voice link (SCO channel HV3 packets)
Transmit approx. 15% of duty cycle
Receive approx. 15% of duty cycle
Idle approx. 70% of duty cycle
It is misleading to compare current consumption figures of radio only; often power consumption when connected but not transferring data has the most impact on battery life
The highly integrated system approach of CSR gives the lowest energy consumption in battery powered applications when one considers real usage

38. Power Saving Modes
CSR BlueCore2-External power consumption in different modes.

39. Features Round-up
Publicly Declared features that are Bluetooth Qualified:
Limited Encryption
Allows ‘eavesdroppers’ in
some situations
Only CSR
Most don’t do Park yet!
(very important for majority
of embedded, battery powered
applications)
Essential
for Access
Points
Some do not qualify basic functions yet e.g.
Voice
Many are not reliable at high temperature
Only CSR supports secure firmware upgrade via standard DFU interface. Others may be impossible to upgrade or vulnerable to virus attack
Data gathered from Bluetooth Qualification website, 3rd October 2001

40. CSR - The Business Case
The Business Case for BlueCore2-External is clear:
Excellent performance specification in all areas RF, Baseband functions, firmware
Complete solutions with host resident software also offered
Unparalleled security of supply by use of CMOS processing
Low cost by use of CMOS processing
A verifiable roadmap for future cost reductions ($5 and beyond) based on the rapid development path of CMOS processing
A commitment to Bluetooth

41. Reliable Supply Is Essential
If an end-user walks into a shop to purchase your product they expect it to be immediately available. If it is not you risk:
Lost sales
Lost market share
Customer dissatisfaction
Lack of credibility
Can all silicon suppliers offer security of supply?

42. CMOS - Can You Risk Using Anything Else?
BlueCore2-External, like all CSR products, uses industry standard, advanced CMOS technology
CSR’s foundry partners are the top volume producers of CMOS
ST Microelectronics - the third largest independent semiconductor company in the world
TSMC - the largest wafer foundry supplier in the world
CMOS
BICMOS
SiGe
SOI
Number of fabs
> 50 11 5
< 5
Mask levels
> 30
Relative Cost / mm2
100%
150%
180%
>150%

43. Availability - questions to ask a potential silicon supplier
How many alternative fab’s are there capable of making your device?
What contingency plans do you have in place?
Is your manufacturing capability scalable?
Could you supply 100 Million devices?

44. A Believable Roadmap to $5 and Beyond
When talking about cost two elements need to be considered:
The cost of the Bluetooth device
The cost of all the external components

45. A Believable Roadmap to $5 and Beyond
The cost of a device depends on many factors including:
Die Size
Cost of manufacturing
BlueCore2-External:
Smallest die - the CSR stack delivers full speed data transfer, mixed voice and data, plus seven slave piconet using less than 32Kbyte RAM. Others need up to 256K.
Standard CMOS technology - for low cost manufacturing

46. Halve Your Component Costs With Combined Tx/Rx Terminals
BlueCore2-External has unique internally switched transmit and receive terminals.
This reduces the number of external components needed. Not needed (class 2):
One Balum = $0.44
RF Switch = $0.46
Saving = $0.90/chip
This circuit configuration has been used for CSR’s qualification tests at 85°C
Competition Device
BlueCore2-External

47. Cost - questions for potential silicon suppliers
How many separate chips does your solution require?
Extra chips mean extra cost
What is the total number of interconnects?
Multiple chip solutions often require extremely complex PCB design
How many external components (crystals etc)?
For class2 operation BlueCore2-external requires only a single balun and no LNA
What is the danger of shortages of the external components?
BlueCore2-External requires only standard components, available from multiple sources
Do you have a realistic roadmap to a $5 solution?
Only a single chip CMOS part will deliver the year-on-year price reduction demanded by the industry

48. Summary BlueCore2-External will: Shorten Your Time to Market
Allow you to Achieve maximum end-user value from Bluetooth
Reduce the overall cost of your Bluetooth implementation

49. Enabling the Bluetooth Revolution