Impulsesoft signs two more Bluetooth partners

By K.C. Krishnadas
EE Times
(01/02/02, 03:47:33 PM EDT)

BANGALORE, India Impulsesoft, a short-range wireless startup, said it will work with Broadcom Corp. (Irvine, Calif.) to develop Bluetooth solutions for embedded markets, and with Conexant Systems Inc. (Newport Beach, Calif.) to develop a Bluetooth-enabled modem product.

Impulsesoft, based here, has separately announced the release of a Bluetooth protocol stack for devices that run Windows CE, Microsoft's operating system for handheld units.

The company has previously announced Bluetooth partnerships with three other manufacturers.

Impulsesoft said it and Broadcom have jointly developed a Bluetooth serial port adapter built around iBTStack, Impulsesoft's embedded Bluetooth protocol stack, and Broadcom's single-chip Bluetooth transceiver. Targeted at the industrial and medical systems markets, the adapter is ready for demonstration.

Broadcom's Blutonium single-chip Bluetooth transceiver complements Impulsesoft's embedded software and hardware integration services for embedded wireless products, said K. Srikrishna, chief executive officer of Impulsesoft.

"Turnkey solutions and strong support are the key to successful adoption of Bluetooth in the embedded [market]," Srikrishna said. The serial port adapter is "only the first of multiple products" that the two companies plan to develop for the near future, he said.

Modem reference design

Impulsesoft will also collaborate with Conexant to develop a V.90 modem reference design that employs Conexant's V.90 single-chip modem and Bluetooth chip sets with Impulsesoft's iBTStack. The design will include security-management features and will support simultaneous multiuser functionality, the companies said.

Integrating the protocol stack within the Conexant baseband controller eliminates the need for an additional processor, which will help lower the cost of Bluetooth end applications, the companies said.

Impulsesoft said its stack is optimized for the size and performance requirements of embedded applications such as wireless modems. The company's patent-pending SingleT technology makes it possible to port the stack to resource-constrained operating system platforms and to devices that cannot support an operating system, the company said.

Impulsesoft's Bluetooth solution for Windows PCs, called BluePC, also employs SingleT technology and provides 670 kbits/second of Bluetooth bandwidth at the application level.

Impulsesoft's WinCE Bluetooth protocol stack, announced in December, enables a Web browser in a Windows CE-based system, as well as file transfers, audio applications and legacy applications.

The WinCE Bluetooth stack, which complies with the Bluetooth 1.1 specification, is being used on the baseband and RF silicon of other vendors, Impulsesoft said. It supports all Bluetooth layers and includes all profiles needed to run existing applications in PDAs and other portable devices. Impulsesoft said it would offer customization services to help OEMs add Bluetooth functionality to such devices.

"With the release of this product, users of WinCE handhelds will be able to leverage Bluetooth transparently to achieve significant productivity while staying truly mobile," said Srikrishna.

"We are making end products, unlike other Bluetooth companies from India," the CEO added.

Impulsesoft has separate Bluetooth agreements with Silicon Wave Inc. (San Diego), U.S. Software Corp. (Hillsboro, Ore.) and Infineon Technologies (Munich, Germany).