CSR has added a Bluetooth comms capability to its voice-over IP phone reference design.
The Cambridge-based firm’s interest in the Internet phone market is born out by market research which suggests it could to grow to over 300 million handsets in the next five years.
Yet all the major chip firms, including Texas 
Instruments and Broadcom, are targeting the Internet phone market so with competition so fierce, CSR has been quick to make the most of its Bluetooth expertise and to offer a dual-mode reference design for low cost high volume handsets.
“It’s clear that consumers like the concept of the dual mode phone, however until now it has proved tricky to deliver the power consumption and voice quality that the end customer requires,” said Raj Gawera, marketing manager 
for the WiFi strategic business at CSR.
The firm claims to have overcome the interference issues between WiFi and Bluetooth radio when working at the same time.
“With these issues overcome, we believe that dual mode phones present a tremendous opportunity for manufacturers,” said Gawera.
The UniVox Mobile reference design is based on UniFi, CSR’s single chip WiFi chipset, and also includes Bluetooth functionality via a choice of BlueCore4-ROM or BlueCore5-FM.
UniVox Mobile also enables WiFi to be used as the bearer for other services, such as web browsing and multimedia streaming, added Gawera.