The cell phone is undergoing a metamorphosis. Its primary purpose remains voice communications, but that role is expanding significantly: it’s also becoming an entertainment device. Early generation “smartphones” have already started to merge features of other consumer electronics devices such as digital cameras and Web browsers. Meanwhile, advances in digital signal processors (DSPs) are setting the stage for a new generation of no-sacrifice, all-in-one entertainment devices that will deliver a consumer-electronics–quality experience to the wireless user. Early adopters in Asia are already using cell phones to take print-quality digital photographs, record or watch video or broadcast TV, and play console-quality video games.
As these phones launch in the North American market in the next few years, they should be very attractive to consumers, and thus will represent an enormous market opportunity for software developers. Successfully selling software into the cell phone market, however, is far different from doing so in other markets such as PDAs or desktop PCs. The cell phone’s design and distribution cycle is structured differently. Also, software must work within specific hardware constraints and also interface to the mobile network infrastructure.
Features in the not so distant future
First take a look at upcoming features that will drive this market (Fig. 1). A key element is the display. By late next year telephone displays will reach QVGA (240 x 320) and VGA (480 x 640) resolutions at 30 frames/sec, which allow comfortable viewing of video material. The same phone will display high-res photos; its camera will support image capture at 4 and later 6 megapixels; and it will also be able to operate as a camcorder. For enhanced viewing, phones will incorporate TV-output interfaces—some using wireless schemes. Enhanced audio goes hand-in-hand with high-quality video; soon users will be able to listen to high-fidelity music with Dolby audio processing and 3D effects from a headset.
Fig. 1: In the near future, cell phones will embrace an all-in-one entertainment architecture, integrating the features of many consumer-electronics devices without sacrificing performance or the user experience.
The same phones will also take on the role of a high-end console for interactive entertainment, such as games. Soon these phones will be able to offer a rich gaming experience on the move, displaying up to 2 million polygons/sec, up from the 50,000 to 100,000—a performance greater than some of today’s dedicated gaming consoles! Thanks to wireless access to the Internet, these phones will also allow for online gaming, Web surfing and Emailing. Enterprise features like real-time video conferencing and document transfer will appeal to corporate users.
What’s making all this possible is the latest generation of mobile phone application processors, DSPs and cellular digital basebands. For instance, the TI OMAP 2 architecture includes multiple engines executing multiple tasks (Fig. 2). An ARM11-based microprocessor runs the OS and performs supervisory control; a DSP core focuses on audio codecs, echo cancellation, and noise suppression; a 3D graphics engine enables sophisticated graphics rendering; a video/imaging accelerator handles streaming MPEG4 and WMV9 video as well as multi-megapixel resolution digital cameras; finally, a digital baseband processor implements network communications as a cellular modem, handling voice and data. Because these blocks all operate simultaneously, there is no degradation in the quality of any service: the devices are highly responsive, and they achieve flicker-free video and click-free audio through multitasking. Further, to conserve power, each of these subsystems can be shut down when not needed.
Fig. 2: Multiple engines on advanced mobile processor architectures such as the OMAP 2 architecture run multiple tasks in parallel, thereby eliminating any degradation in the quality of service, and yielding high-quality audio and video.
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