Swinging Singles
Single chip solutions helping drive voice over broadband
By Evan Blackwell
from the April 16, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
The broadband revolution knows how to move data fast. And that extends to the chipset technology forming the core of the broadband voice package, whether it's VoDSL, cable telephony or wireless local loop. With today's trying market conditions, chip technology has become more important than ever as vendors attempt to reduce the cost and complexity of enabling voice over broadband networks.
Cutting power requirements, reducing space needs, and incorporating more and more features and enhancements intended to reduce the cost of making and operating voice systems are considered crucial elements of silicon strategies.
"We're kind of like an ammo manufacturer," says John Gleiter, a marketing director at broadband chip giant Broadcom Corp. "We provide the bullets to the guys that sell the guns."
If one trend stands out more than any other in the chip market, it's the ability to place multiple key functions together onto a single chip, a technology that established chip makers and startups alike have been working for years to produce. One such company working across all the different access technologies is Broadcom, one of the most noteworthy providers of integrated circuits. Broadcom has been influential in the cable telephony market, where last fall it released its single-chip DOCSIS 1.1 standard-based cable modem solution aimed at addressing the necessary reliability requirements for Internet Protocol cable telephony.
Broadcom's flagship cable chip, the BCM3352, integrated several components, including a VoIP digital signal processor (DSP), a four-channel IP voice codec and IP security into one product. The chip was designed to meet both the DOCSIS and EuroDOCSIS standards for equipment interoperability. Another of Broadcom's single-chip voice solutions was released early in 2001, the BCM1100 for IP phones. Circuit features include two Ethernet transceivers, and analog codecs for handset and speakerphone support.
Broadcom's far from alone in its work. Germany's Infineon Technologies has also broken single-chip ground in the DSL space. Just last month, the company released its IVAX family of asymmetric digital subscriber line chipsets; its latest products for combining voice and other ADSL services onto a single line card.
Infineon, a powerful chip company with more than 29,000 employees worldwide, claims IVAX is the first integrated POTS and ADSL transceiver solution on the market, eliminating the need for separate overlay networks that drive up costs. In its marketing for the product, Infineon stressed IVAX's potential to minimize the number of required external components for service providers.
Another key competitor of Broadcom and Infineon, Texas Instruments, perhaps carries the name with the most clout in the silicon world. Having been in the chip business for decades, TI has its own arsenal of VoB solutions. One particular area TI has specialized in has been DSPs for VoIP, where it calls itself the market leader.
Through its subsidiary, Telogy Networks, TI builds the TMS320C5000 voice-optimized DSP that powers its chipsets for VoDSL and cable telephony. Among other customers, last year, Alcatel began using TI's DSP technology in its line of VoDSL equipment.
A whole slew of new chipmakers are challenging the more established players, and they're attempting to carve out a niche in the market with innovation.
Before it even turned three years old, Ishoni Networks in March unleashed the first two products of its "gateway-on-a-chip" solution. Ishoni's DV2000 is targeted specifically for VoB applications by combining data networking, voice processing and security on a single chip. Ishoni's patent-pending FlexibleWAN engine also supports connectivity to DSL, cable and broadband wireless transceivers.
Another broadband chipmaker, Centillium Communications, just released the next generation of its Entropia VoIP chips in early April. Another in the line of "system-on-a-chip" solutions, Entropia includes a DSP and the telephony software for voice compression, echo cancellation and tone detection.
Laurie Falconer, director of marketing at Centillium, says the importance of Entropia and other similar products is the flexibility it brings to service providers juggling different platforms for voice equipment.
"If you're the AT&T's of the world, you have a significant investment in your circuit-switched network for voice. You also have new investment in your ATM network," Falconer says. "(Entropia) will allow you to bridge with the existing network and switch traffic between VoB networks."
No question that cost is the bottom line to carriers, even more so in the current market. That's why chipmakers such as Centillium have geared the marketing of their new products to emphasize the cost-effectiveness of their solutions.
Agere Systems, the former microelectronics unit of Lucent Technologies, and Legerity, a former division of Advanced Micro Devices, are two of the leaders among semiconductor companies that make subscriber line interface circuit (SLIC) chips that are the interface between a telephone set and such CPE equipment as modems or SOHO gateways. Taking the same tack Infineon did with its IVAX chips, Legerity and Agere both released updates to their SLIC products in recent months and stressed the cost cutting benefits that would result.
Legerity's ISLIC/ISLAC chipsets offer ringing support, integrated line test and diagnostic capabilities and modem tone detection to ensure the voice quality. Following the industry mantra, the company pointed out that its integration of features enables carriers to reduce diagnostics costs with remote test abilities that will minimize truck rolls. Agere, which also announced that its SLIC will integrate with Broadcom's cable telephony chip, made similar promises with its products and specifically trumpeted its product's low power consumption as a key to lower system costs.
No matter what the chipmakers promise in the way of features, they all are trying to convince service providers of a reduced bottom line with VoB.
"We've been quite successful supplying telephone circuits for years," says James Coval, the general manager of Legerity's VoB product line. "This market is clearly changing. We're seeing more of a push toward different ways of providing voice. We believe very much in this market."
The amount of chip activity in the VoB space proves that Legerity's not along in that thinking. The chip and network equipment vendors already have solved many of the problems that threaten to stall VoDSL and cable IP telephony. The chipmakers believe that will lead to more, and more rapid, rollouts of service.
"Voice over broadband economics are very, very attractive to operators," Gleiter says. "Service providers need to get the most efficiency out of their networks. There's a huge incentive to combine equipment and get to a unified VoB solution."
They can. It starts with the silicon.
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