Patrick Mannion
Site Editor, Mobile Handset DesignLine
TechOnline

While it's been said time and time again that it's a fools' game, making predictions is essential in any endeavor in order to plot some kind of path forward. In the case of the Mobile Handset DesignLine, it's an essential part of my job that will help guide coverage over the coming months in order to provide the information that you, the designer, will need well in advance. Granted, some of those predictions may not come through, so feel free to pummel me this time next year.

I go about this exercise by asking myself: "Who's driving the market and what do they want to do with their mobile devices?" There was a time when the answer was the professional, but, right now, it's the consumer. More specifically, impatient young consumers with an increasing thirst for anytime, anywhere connectivity, instant messaging, high-speed 'push-to-anything' capability, no-artifact video streaming, MP3 capability, massive storage needs with high-speed symmetric uploads/downloads and personalized features and functions with the 'My Xyz" moniker. Throw in CD-quality wireless stereo playback with accompanying headsets, multi-standard wireless networking connectivity, smaller size, increasingly attractive styling, lower cost and more intuitive interfaces and... well, you get the picture. It's going to be an interesting year ahead for us all.

Identifying what people want specifically is half the battle. Samsung has risen to number two in the handset rankings in North America in part because it has identified those multi-level market needs and packaged them in style and with good engineering. Going forward, it sees even more specificity with increasing market stratification and diversification. It's all about delivering features and functionality as close as possible to the individual's needs. On the backend the resulting number of SKUs will skyrocket and create an inventory nightmare for operators, but on the front end it'll show that both Samsung and the operators are tuned to the needs of the market. It's this approach that I think will lead to Samsung taking the lead in handsets over Motorola in the U.S. in 2007.

So what technologies and design techniques will rise to the fore to enable either the all-in-one device or the more personalized feature phone? Starting at the connectivity level, there's been much ado about mobile WiMAX becoming the one-size-fits-all solution for both wide area and eventually in-home, last-mile broadband access. That's already happening in Korea under the moniker of Wibro in the 2.3-GHz band. If Sprint-Nextel has its way, that'll be the case also in the U.S., starting the end of 2007 in the 2.5-GHz band. Backed by Intel, Motorola and Samsung, the network will start to expand in 2008 to cover the entire nation. Given the acceptance the idea has had, the number of IC vendors who have jumped on board after sitting on the fence for the last three years, I'm thinking this may well be the next 'big thing' and it's wise to start factoring it in to your PDA and other mobile device designs right away.

Another reason I'm intrigued by mobile WiMAX is that it's based on Internet Protocol from the ground up. With the core networks now upgrading rapidly to the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), it's going to be IP, all the time. The scalability, flexibility and potentially lower of that network make it a slam dunk going forward. Mobile WiMAX can take advantage of that. Current cellular networks are upgrading to IMS, but they still have to support a huge circuit-switched legacy network.

That legacy implies that the move to mobile WiMAX won't happen overnight. It'll start in laptops late next year and move to handsets two years from now. But in the interim, handsets will increasingly turn to cellular/Wi-Fi combo devices, as augured by the recent buyout of Airgo Networks by Qualcomm. That's a harbinger of things to come: OFDM/MIMO in laptops and handsets for wide-area cellular network data access using EVDO and its derivatives and then capitalizing upon local-area Wi-Fi connectivity for high-rate downloads and cheap VoIP calls. So, GSM/GPRS/EDGE will continue to co-exist with CDMA and EVDO and wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) networks with HSDPA and HSUPA will continue to roll out. So, for wide-area connectivity, cellular will dominate in 2007 with Wi-Fi combo devices filling in the high-speed link. Mobile WiMAX won't even start to be a factor until 2008.

So, for the handset itself, more integration is the norm, but flexible RF front ends using MEMS-based filters will move from the lab into mainstream devices this coming year. OLEDs, already on the front of clamshell phones, will move more into the main screen role and fuel cells will emerge in handsets by mid-to-late 2007. If Texas Instruments has its way, a single-chip EDGE phone chip will emerge late next year and I believe Airgo's Greg Raleigh when he says Qualcomm will have the software in place for seamless roaming between Wi-Fi and cellular networks.

Software-defined radio, the eternal darling of 'coming soon' predictions, willwell, be coming soon. Depending on your definition of SDR, it can be anywhere from here and now to ten years out. Cognitive radio, already used in a lightweight form in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth networks for interference avoidance, will continue to be a hotbed of university research, but no real implementation will come out next yearor the year after for that matter.

I'm fascinated by the role massive storage will play in handsets and the effect it'll have on the generation of new applications. Whatever the effect, it's going to be big, from rapid download pay-as-you-go of video content on the move, to new paradigms for applications on the move, it's going to be interesting. The emergence of NAND for both storage and as a replacement for NOR for program code will also be a trend next year.

Paradoxically, some may argue that the increasing data rates will make local storage obsolete. That's a polarized argument that I think will come to a head in the year to come and the direction it takes will be a key determinant of how handsets will develop. It's one to watch, as is the emergence of Mobile TV.

All in all, 2007 will be a wireless cornucopia that will be do-or-die time for a number of technologies. Besides WiMAX, those technologies include ultrawideband (UWB), Bluetooth over UWB, NFC and 60 GHz technologies. But cellular, in all its variants, will continue to grow strong as the operators expand their 3G rollouts. Lots to write about next year—and lots of design decisions for you to make. Stay tuned and let the Mobile Handset DesignLine be one of your guides.

If you have any predictions, I'd love to hear them at pmannion@cmp.com or post them to the accompanying forum at Mobile Handset DesignLine. Have a great holiday season and a happy and prosperous New Year,

Patrick Mannion
Editor, Mobile Handset DesignLine