By Ed Sperling
As the number of short- and long-range communications protocols increases, so does the complexity of designing an SoC. That’s bad enough from a layout perspective, but when it comes to I/O is becoming particularly challenging.

The problem has changed from two directions. First, there is more communication with more data at all times using almost all devices, from desktops to mobile computers to smart phones. In SoC design, that means more processor cores, more concerns about the physical effects created by those cores, including leakage and noise, and more energy required to run them.

Second, there are simply more ways of communicating and more protocols to do it with. The number of standards being supported by devices these days—often in the way of dedicated processors—is exploding—frequently even for the same technology. In-Stat, the market researcher, just released a report that says Bluetooth-enabled device shipments will exceed 2 billion in 2013. There is also a new standard called Bluetooth 3.0 + High Speed that allows Bluetooth and WiFi to work together. And later this year there will be Bluetooth 4.0 + High Speed.

Communications has always been filled with a confusing array of protocols and acronyms, but they largely have been in separate worlds for distinctly different purposes. Wi-Fi was considered the standard for mid-range wireless, but even that’s changing. There’s now a push for Wi-Fi 802.11ac, which is aimed at decreasing latency and improving streaming speed. And when you consider Wi-Fi, WiMax, LTE and a few other floating around the fringe, this can get quite complicated.

Perhaps even more complicated, though, is how to deal with all the communications I/O into a device. If a device supports multiple near-field, mid-range and long-range communication protocols, what happens when more than one is operational? And what happens to a device’s power? So far, there are no good answers to these questions. And as more versions of the same protocol get added, even with backward compatibility there is likely to be more confusion—which further exacerbates energy consumption, leakage and the physical effects that design engineers and SoC architects increasingly have to deal with.

Tags: communications, I/O, In-Stat, NFC, WiFi

This entry was posted on Friday, August 19th, 2011 at 12:01 am and is filed under News Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.