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The TyTN third-generation Windows Mobile smart phone from HTC (Slough, England) is designed for global use. As a world phone, it supports a variety of cellular networks, including GSM (850, 900, 1,800 and 1,900 MHz), UMTS (800, 850, 1,900 and 2,100 MHz) and wide-area network standards including CSD, GPRS, Edge and HSDPA. In addition to the network standards, the TyTN supports a number of connectivity modes, including USB v1.1, Bluetooth v2.0 and 802.11b/g wireless LANs.
Thanks to a 2-Mpixel CMOS image sensor, still images can be taken in JPEG and BMP formats, while videos can be recorded at 20 frames/second in 3GPP, MPEG-4 and MJPG formats. Since it's a 3G phone, the TyTN has an additional camera for videoconferencing. The images can be viewed on the 240 x 320-pixel, 2.8-inch TFT screen with 64k-color resolution.
The screen also has touch capabilities, as expected on a Windows Mobile handset. Data can be input either on the screen or through the slide-out keyboard. The screen can be set for either portrait or landscape mode, depending on whether the keyboard is in use. Other phones in the Windows Mobile handset market include the O2 Xda IIi, i-mate PDA2 and T-Mobile MDA Vario II.
The TyTN's MP3 player, capable of 16-bit audio sampling, can play back AMR, AAC, WAV, WMA and MP3 files. There is also a mono microphone for recording. Memory storage is 128 Mbytes, of which 57 Mbytes are available for the user. To increase the capacity, the TyTN accepts microSD cards.
Samsung processor
The phone measures 2.3 x 4.4 inches by less than an inch deep, and weighs 179 grams. It has a 1,350-mA-hr lithium-ion battery with an estimated battery life of 200 hours standby or four hours talk time. Media playback is estimated at around 10 hours. However, the battery life is reduced when using different connectivity modes.
One of the main components that has been widely discussed is the Samsung processor. The part number on the package is SC32442AL-43S. This is a 400-MHz processor with an ARM920 core that is designed to support 3G baseband and platform OS devices, as well as imaging functions. It has a 16k/16k cache and a 32-bit instruction set. A number of other phones use the same Samsung processor, including HTC's MteoR, Samsung's SGH-i320 and Palm's Treo 750.
In addition to the Samsung processor, HTC also used the ATI 215W2282 from ATI Technologies (now a part of AMD) in the TyTN. This device enables 3-Mpixel image capturing, video recording and playback, videoconferencing, and audio encoding and decoding.
A wide variety of connectivity devices are necessary to meet all the standards that the TyTN is capable of interfacing with. Many of the components for this job are supplied by Qualcomm. This is the first phone Semiconductor Insights has analyzed that uses that company's MSM6275 chip set. The baseband operates in wideband-CDMA/HSDPA and GSM/GPRS/Edge networks. The MSM6275 also has an embedded ARM core (ARM926) as well as two embedded QDSP4000 digital signal processors. It is capable of supporting imaging at up to 4 Mpixels and video at 15 frames/s.
It is difficult to determine which component is providing which functionality in the TyTN. For example, a number of components are capable of imaging and video playback. Implementing multiple components that are able to do the same functionality is likely a way to distribute the workload and optimize the phone's performance. It would be a fair guess that the Samsung processor is used for the PDA features, the ATI Imageon graphics chip for imaging and video playback, and the Qualcomm MSM6275 for baseband connectivity.
Qualcomm provides a whole suite of supporting devices for the baseband functionality. There are two receivers (the RFR6220 and RFR6250), one transmitter (RTR6250) and one power-management device (PM6650). This is a standard combination that follows the Qualcomm MSM6275 data sheet.
Meanwhile, Texas Instruments provides Bluetooth v1.2 functionality. This is interesting, since the Qualcomm MSM6275 supports Bluetooth v1.2. However, HTC decided to use an additional component, again, most likely to offload the baseband and allow for multiple connections to occur simultaneously — for example, synching with a computer via Bluetooth and receiving a call at the same time.
The only confusing part is that HTC states that the TyTN is a Bluetooth v2.0-compatible phone, while the TI BRF6150 component complies with Bluetooth v1.2. There are no other identifiable components that would provide Bluetooth v2.0.
Gregory Quirk (gregoryq@semiconductor.com), technology marketing manager at Semiconductor Insights Inc.(www.semiconductor.com).
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