ATUL ARORA explains why processor cores will continue to be crucial to the development of Next Generation Applications..

Atul Arora is President- Commercial Operations, ARM Embedded Technologies Pvt. Ltd. With 20 years of experience in Account-Sales and Area Management positions at Texas instruments, LSI LOGIC Inc. and Cadence Design Systems ( all US MNCs, Arora joined ARM Ttd. in 1999 as Regional Manager for Central European Operations (Germany, Austria, Switzerland).

Arora has completed his M. Tech. in Electronics from the University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany...

The world of communications has seen a quantum change in the last decade with the advent of the Internet, mobile phones and associated services. Rapid development of technology has been met with keen interest and adoption of devices, trends and applications by vendors and consumers alike. We are continuously witnessing technology convergence and advancements, prompting us to ask what we will see in the next generation of applications. If the period gone by is what we could call as the 'wireless evolution', let's analyse what could be expected in the future, i.e. the period of 'wireless revolution'.

Next Generation Applications are the functions, services and trends that will be available for consumers in the communication devices of the future. Much like today, where features like camera-onmobile, SMS, MMS, integrated music, to name a few, are broadly accepted, we will see new features in the future that will change our communication habits and preferences. Mobile devices such as smart phones, feature phones, portable media players with Mobile TV, high speed Internet, mobile gaming, along with the corresponding services are the next generation applications on the horizon. Let us take a look at some of these applications and trends that will shape the future of communications

Battery operated, on the move - Feature Phones, Smart Phones
While we see emerging technologies and applications, it is necessary to identify existing ones as 'real trends' and observe the ones that are on the anvil. We can expect continued demand for voice phones, smart phones,

feature phones, cordless phones, Bluetooth devices, PDAs and portable media players. Especially in a market like India, where consumer profiles are diverse and spending patterns vary according to geographical, societal, cultural and social conditions. Entry-level voice phones will continue to have a huge demand from rural consumer segments and first-time users.

Simple applications such as voice dialing and SMS are common in these market segments where mobile phones are exciting and appealing and mobility gives them a new dimension in life, the access to near and dear ones all the time. Feature phones displaying rich features such as colour display, basic camera functionality, MMS, IM, wireless communication features like Bluetooth and IR and GPRS functionality are expected to be in steady demand. A segment of first-time users is expected to cross-over to this range of mobile phones from simple voice phones. The real demand though, is expected to come from smart phones in the next few years.

Wikipedia defines a smart phone as "a fullfeatured mobile phone with personal computer like functionality. Most smart phones are camera phones that support fullfeatured email capabilities with the functionality of a complete personal organizer. 'Smart' functionality includes any additional interface including a miniature QWERTY keyboard, a touch screen, or even just secure access to company mail." Market research firm IDC predicts that 70 per cent of all mobile devices will be smart phones by 2010. A key factor for its growing popularity and demand is the need for real-time access to information and on-demand access to applications such as email, calendar, contact and other information on the go. Mobile manufacturers say the smart phone market boom has already begun with target segments being middle management employees and information workers. This is not surprising, considering the nature of the smart phone and its functionalities.

Operators focus on services
We will continue to see an active role played by both telecom operators and the government authorities in providing content and services to consumers more than ever; we have only seen the tip of the iceberg in this sense. What we can expect to see to a greater degree is the wide variety of services and options that will be available to consumers in terms of applications content.

High speed Internet on mobile is keenly awaited as it promises better quality, higher speed of deployment and reach. But this will only be available once the government authorities and telecom operators agree to a common technology standard to deploy. At the moment, some standards that are under consideration for adoption are 3G, 3.5G, 4G and WiMAX. Deployment of these standards will result in a faster adoption of services and next generation applications such as TV on mobile, video on demand and location based services. Other existing applications that will receive a boost of performance and download and upload time are MMS / photo sharing, email, push to talk. Besides the enriched entertainment functions that the evolving standards can bring, there are many other applications that can be identified for areas like e-learning and a virtual commercial world.

The number of mobile phones equipped with games (single player and multi-player), cameras and Internet access is growing exponentially. With the third and fourth generation standards waiting to be rolled-out, phones are expected to be the answer to all communication needs. While there has been a steady adoption of 3G phones and services in the industry, the devices have hardly been pushed to their performance abilities such as mobile Internet, TV on mobile and others. 3G standard provides high benefits such as increased data speeds, faster Internet browsing, faster data transfer than anything present now, and high-end graphics / gaming functionalities. Besides, other applications that will make these mobile devices truly next generation are the adoption of services such as mobile TV, GPS and video monitoring. 3G mobile TV and video streaming are predicted to be among the top three mobile data services in the world. According to Gartner, with close to half a billion subscribers globally, mobile TV will become a mainstream service in most developed markets by 2010, growing to 356 million users around 2010.

Convergence
The word convergence has become synonymous with the technology-savvy individual today. By convergence, we mean a multi-media environment where data, voice, audio and video are all available in one device and its ability to exchange, communicate the same with other devices. A classic case of convergence is a smart phone where voice calls can be made, data can be sent, photos can be shared, and web browsing is possible. All data forms are converged into that device. As OEMs deliver convergence, the next generation application trends that we can expect to see are - mobile phones being used as watches (through NFC technology - Near Field Communications), as video cameras and as TVs.

A common challenge faced by mobile handset makers is the need for fast and power efficient processors. As the leader in designing the technology for advanced digital products, the ARM Cortex-A8 processor is designed specifically for these requirements of advanced low-power mobile and consumer applications. The ARM Cortex-A8 processor delivers up to 2,000 DMIPS at 1GHz in high performance 90nm and 65nm technologies, making it ideal for demanding consumer products running multi-channel video, audio, and gaming applications. It meets the demands of rapid convergence of digital entertainment and communications devices that require a new level of system performance and security.

Mobile Gaming
Besides mobile TV, the other application to have mass appeal across consumer segments is mobile gaming. Already, we see demand coming from today's consumers for high-end gaming on their mobile phones. The demand for high-end graphics on mobile phones is only set to increase, as high quality graphics enable users to experience a faster transition rate of video and audio delivery and to play in multi-player mode, via the Internet. The success of bringing high-quality content on mobile devices for gaming involves semiconductor chip architects / makers, mobile handset makers and game developers.

A key challenge faced by makers of mobile handsets and game publishers has been the need for high-quality games and applications to be tested and available on the day the handset is released to make the most of the limited shelf life of a new device. Applications developers need a development platform months before silicon and system hardware would be available to enable the game developer to move quickly from generic application development to interactive testing. In March this year, ARM released a standards-compliant ARM Mali SDK (Software Development Kit) that complements market-leading combination of hardware, software and tools for the development of graphics applications. It forms part of an integrated suite of market leading standards-compliant hardware, software and tools within the ARM graphics ecosystem designed to help developers bring high quality games to market first, running on the maximum number of handsets. The ARM graphics ecosystem enables collaboration among market leaders to link the ARM platform with a community of complementary solutions to shape the future of the graphics industry. ARM contributes its expertise as a processor, GPU and tools vendor to enable application developers to create competitive, cutting-edge games for handset models before the first silicon is ready. This mutually beneficial cooperation provides game developers, publishers and tools vendors with the differentiation necessary to lead in this competitive market.

In general, the next generation applications will take advantage of hardware and software available to deliver enhanced experience to consumers. All such applications and services will only be made possible if the devices are capable of streaming high quality content, processing data at the right speed and continue to manage power efficiently. As the heart of digital devices, the processor core will continue to play a crucial role.