About 25 years ago, teens were demanding, “I want my MTV” and driving cable companies to enable more entertainment content. Fast forward to today, they are screaming, “I want my Justin Bieber” streamed to my wireless device. Leading edge companies are rolling out new Cloud services to meet the demand. Now, the pressure is on the mobile network operators (MNO) to improve their infrastructure to enable the new wave of entertainment content.
This week at WWDC in San Francisco, Apple made its announcement of a new service called iCloud. Utilizing resources at a massive 500,000 sq. ft. data center in North Carolina, iCloud provides a cloud-based music synchronization service for your OS X and, more importantly, iOS devices. iCloud automatically downloads any new music purchase to all your devices over Wi-Fi — or over 3G if you choose. Moreover, iCloud is replacing MobileMe as the synchronization of all the other data types on your phone, including photos, mail, calendars, contacts, etc.
iCloud is not alone in providing rich media via the cloud; Google and Amazon both have similar services. Others services such as NetFlix, HBO to Go, etc. are not synchronizing rich media, but rather streaming them. The potential millions of iPhone iPad, Android and other users each wanting real-time downloads of music and video must be sending shivers down the spines of the operations and business people at AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc.
Enter 4G or LTE (Long-Term Evolution)
Just building more of the same 3G wireless networks will not meet the customer demand and most definitely is not financially viable. To profitably meet the upcoming bandwidth requirements of services like iCloud and other rich-media streaming solutions, MNOs must transition to LTE-based 4G technologies. So what is LTE?
Evolution is the keyword; it is the evolution from current GSM/WCDMA and CDMA networks to a new common standard that promises to be 2-5x more efficient in providing a better experience for end-users and better cost economics for MNOs. It leverages two critical new techniques for access: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna technologies. OFDM can split the data into multiple narrowband subcarriers that handle a portion of the data at a lower bit rate and MIMO technology creates multiple paths between the device and the base station to increase the coverage due to better signal-to-noise ratios and higher user bandwidth.
More Sophistication Requires More Sophistication
Implementing LTE both at the base station as well as the mobile device is clearly challenging embedded systems designers. The complexity of delivering this new-sophisticated functionality requires increased sophistication from the embedded semiconductor solutions.
At Spansion, we are working with our partners to provide NOR Flash memory solutions to meet the needs of these LTE infrastructure systems. High reliability code and data storage is required for these state-of-the-art next-generation communications systems. Spansion GL NOR Flash memory, with its wide density range, is perfectly suited for this advanced networking gear and helps ensure systems are up and running so users get quick access to content.
LTE definitely presents new opportunities for Spansion. Just wondering why embedded system designers will prefer Spansion GL NOR Flash memory to its competitors?
Spansion has been the preferred partner in the embedded market for many years due to our products, customer service, and quality. Spansion GL NOR leads the market with its innovative features and fast performance. In addition, Spansion is known for its longevity of service. In the world of telecom infrastructure, changes are costly. We continue to support those customers who have long design cycles and even longer product life cycles with the same quality of products above and beyond what our competitors have done.
Thanks.So, I am safely assuming that customer service and better product are 2 key differentiators for Spansion.
Best,
Rahul