Freescale shows DIY S60 handset kit

THE CHANGING nature of the mobile handset industry was brought home to the INQ here at the S60 Summit by Freescale. The company wasn't just showing off its chipset but offering a complete DIY S60 handset kit.

Reference designs are commonplace but Freescale has actually ported the complete S60 system to its latest chipsets. A handset vendor would have to add very little to arrive at a working handset.

Freescale told the INQ that it was currently in discussions with a major handset vendor but could make no design win announcement until the handset itself was launched some time in Q3-Q4 2008.

Given that Freescale has a traditionally close relationship with Motorola, the probability that Motorola is the client is exceedingly high.

The main component Freescale was showing off was its MXC91321 chip which marries the typical handset DSP along with an ARM core applications processor for the main smartphone functionality.

This setup dispenses with standard requirement for dual applications processors along with their associated – and separate - Flash and ROM memories.

That in turn will help reduce component counts and build costs. In this case the MXC chipset and associated components will help create a low cost, 3G-ready Symbian smartphone. µ