Infineon Introduces World's Smallest HSPA+ Solution for 3G Smart Phones

Infineon Technologies today at the Mobile World Congress 2010 announced the availability of XMM 6260, the latest platform in its 3G slim-modem family.

The XMM 6260 platform is optimized as a slim-modem for smart phone architectures coupled with an application processor or as a standalone solution for PC modems and data cards. This advanced HSPA+ platform is based on two new highly integrated Infineon devices: the X-GOLD 626 baseband processor and the SMARTi UE2 Radio Frequency (RF) transceiver. Together with the Infineon 3GPP Release 7 protocol stack, the XMM 6260 platform comprises a fully integrated HSPA+ system solution.

Smartphone manufacturers require scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions. The slim-modem concept provides customers with the flexibility to adopt the latest application and operating system technologies and to scale multiple platforms while benefiting from a high degree of reuse on the modem.

“The XMM 6260 platform is the fourth generation of successful 3G platforms from Infineon perfectly matching the requirements of advanced smart phones and mobile internet devices,” said Weng Kuan Tan, Division President of the Wireless Solutions Division at Infineon. “It continues the fast evolution of our leading baseband and transceiver technology by adding advanced HSPA+ features, while significantly reducing board space, power consumption, and BOM (Bill of Material) costs”.

The heart of the XMM 6260 platform is the new X-GOLD 626 baseband processor, manufactured by TSMC in its latest 40 nm process technology. The X-GOLD 626 has an integrated power management unit, enabling best-in-class power consumption in both active and idle mode. The new processor is combined with the recently announced market-leading SMARTi UE2 RF transceiver. The 65nm CMOS transceiver employs a revolutionary new digital architecture that significantly reduces the number of external RF components, and hence reduces board space and power consumption. The entire XMM 6260 modem platform fits in less than 600mm² PCB (Printed Circuit Board) area, making it the smallest HSPA+ solution worldwide. Customers benefit from lower cost and space savings, which significantly increases design flexibility, to create unique and feature rich handsets and mobile internet cards with innovative form factors.

The X-GOLD 626 is based on the scalable ARM11 architecture, which is used across all Infineon 2G and 3G platforms. This common architecture ensures Infineon’s customers a high degree of reuse of their hardware and software investment when developing handsets across the entire cellular portfolio. The XMM 6260 3GPP Rel7 HSPA+ platform supports HSPA category 14 (21 Mbit per second) in the downlink and category 7 (11.5 Mbit per second) in the uplink. In addition the platform includes numerous advanced Release 7 features such as receive diversity, interference cancellation, and CPC (Continuous Packet Connectivity), which significantly improve power consumption and system performance.

Samples and a complete reference system of the XMM 6260 are available and presented at the Infineon booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from February 15 to 18, 2010. Volume production is scheduled to start in second quarter 2011.