CSR's Bluetooth chip enables high quality, low cost headsets

(Product News, 9 Feb 2007)

CSR plc has launched a new Bluetooth chip and example design that reduces the cost of Bluetooth headsets and stimulates market demand. The BlueVOX QFN chip, together with all of the necessary components for a Bluetooth mono headset, will cost OEMs only $6 (eBOM), meaning they can now produce Bluetooth headsets at a fraction of current costs. CSR's BlueVOX QFN is available now, and headsets using it are expected to be on the market by Spring 2007.

BlueVOX QFN is the only Bluetooth headset chip available that enables the use of a low cost, two layer, single-sided PCB. This means lower overall cost, faster PCB design time and simpler manufacturing than alternative solutions which require PCBs with four or more layers.

With a powerful +5.5dBm transmitter and a sensitive -88dBm receiver, the new device offers superior RF performance to any Bluetooth headset solution announced so far. This performance advantage means that headsets designed using the BlueVOX QFN chip will, for example, will be noticeably better when there is no line of sight connection between the headset and the phone.

Power consumption is also better than any announced headset solution, with a battery life of up to 10 hours using a small lightweight battery. The device's internal battery charger uses an advanced charging algorithm, including temperature controlled charging. In addition, the charging circuitry can also support low cost NiHM (Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries.

Anthony Murray, Senior Vice President, Wireless Audio Business Unit, commented: "Reducing costs without sacrificing quality is a major focus for us. For example, it's important that low cost Bluetooth headsets support the latest Bluetooth features, such as eSCO, so that they sound good. We set about not only maintaining audio quality, but also improving range and battery life and significantly lowering the costs. We believe that BlueVOX QFN,is an important step towards making Bluetooth headsets attractive to a much wider market."

CSR has launched BlueVOX QFN with an accompanying example design that simplifies the task of creating a high quality, low cost headset. The example design includes schematic layout, BOM and gerber files. The total eBOM of $6 covers the silicon plus costs for lithium battery, PCB, microphone and speaker plus all of the necessary additional electronic components.

Reducing the cost of Bluetooth headsets will alow OEMs to access a much larger marketplace. A lower cost design will also open up a wider range of retail channels for Bluetooth headsets, and will also give mobile handset manufacturers the opportunity for low cost headset bundling – driving Bluetooth attach rates in both devices.

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