The year’s biggest event Mobile World Congress (MWC 2015) from 2nd – 5th March 2015 in Barcelona, Spain for the mobile industry is now underway. It’s a chance for the world’s innovators to showcase new products and discuss technological evolution. We are bringing here some of the leading innovations and announcements from the exhibitors.
Anritsu Connected Car Cloud Solutions
Anritsu announced that its stand at Mobile World Congress 2015 will feature a sophisticated, cloud-based connected car system for fleet tracking developed at the Smart Systems Laboratory, University of Hertfordshire in the UK, and demonstrated together using satellite positioning technology GNSS Simulator from Spectracom.
Anritsu’s stand (Hall 6/6F40) connected car demonstration shows a car’s diagnostics system connecting to the cloud via a simulated LTE network environment provided by Anritsu’s popular mobile network simulator, the MD8475A. An application in the cloud enables a fleet manager on any internet-connected device to view the location and operating parameters of any vehicle in the fleet in real time. The MD8475A enables the university’s development team to test, from their Hertfordshire laboratory, how the system’s in-car LTE modem would perform in mobile networks from all across the world and supporting all major worldwide standards within a single simulator. SpectracomGNSS Simulator is providing the simulation of positioning data (e.g. GPS signals) to provide location information to the system being tested.
The combination of the MD8475A and the Spectracom GNSS Simulator provides a complete test environment, to simulate any global location, and any type of cellular connectivity, to ensure correct operation of the system. This test bed highlights to the industry the effectiveness of a complete wireless test bed solution, to enable cost effective development testing, product validation, and customer experience evaluation within a single system.
The connected car system being developed is based upon the wireless transmission of the OBD (On Board Diagnostics) information available in all new vehicles to a cloud server, using cellular backhaul (LTE, 3G, GPRS), together with GPS location information. This data is then processed and the status of individual vehicles and the whole fleet is tracked on an interactive map available via the cloud to any suitable tablet, PC, or smartphone.
First crash-less car announced by Freescale
Freescale is exhibiting at Mobile World Congress in Hall 7, Booth 7A80. Freescale Semiconductor introduced the groundbreaking S32V vision microprocessor – the first automotive vision system-on-chip (SoC) with the requisite reliability, safety and security measures to automate and ‘co-pilot’ a self-aware car.
Leveraging a host of automotive-grade technologies, the S32V takes the industry beyond the current, convenience-centric “assist” paradigm and toward an era where cars can capture data, process it and actually share control with drivers in critical situations. This capability establishes the essential bridge from the current “assist” era toward the fully autonomous vehicles of tomorrow.
“The next step in the evolution of self-driving cars will rely on automated systems that accurately process information, make decisions and take the requisite actions,” said Luca De Ambroggi, Principal Analyst, Automotive Semiconductors for analyst firm IHS. “This requires the highest levels of reliability, which are rarely present in consumer-grade silicon. The essential requirement for fail-safe reliability cannot be achieved using consumer-grade silicon without significant costs in system power or form factor.”
In addition to an automotive display featuring a fully equipped car with the very latest in ADAS and infotainment solutions, Freescale is also demonstrating an array of advanced networking and consumer technologies for the secure Internet of Tomorrow.
Waterproof Smartphones
Belgium based Europlasma, a world leader in low pressure plasma technology, is proud to present during Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015 at booth 7M55 in hall 7 its growing family of innovative nanocoating solutions to waterproof smartphones under the Nanofics® brand name.
Nanofics® refers to nanoscaled functionalization into the core of complex shaped materials and products. It is Europlasma’s patented and patent pending nanocoating technology platform, first applied on industrial scale in 1996.
Manufacturers of electronic devices typically use the Nanofics 120® coating solutions to reach the highest levels of water repellency (water contact angle of 120 degrees according to ASTM D5964) and oil repellency (oil repellency level 8 according to ISO 14419).
Samsung Galaxy powered by Infineon
Infineon Technologies AG announced that it supplies the embedded Secure Element (eSE) chip for the new premium smartphones Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. Infineon’s SLE 97 is a SOLID FLASH™-based eSE chip which can safeguard the functionalities of the mobile device as well as transactions where users’ sensitive data such as payment credentials are concerned.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge are Samsung’s new premium smartphones introduced at the “Unpacked 2015” in Barcelona.
Infineon will exhibit its comprehensive portfolio for performance and security in the connected world at the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, Spain (Hall 6, Booth 6B62).
Wireless Power demonstration by IDT
Integrated Device Technology, Inc. announced that it will showcase its leading wireless technology at Mobile World Congress. IDT will have demos of its latest wireless power semiconductors as well as products for its wireless infrastructure applications. IDT will display the technology at Booth 1H10. The conference runs March 2 -5 at the Fira Gran Via.
IDT’s wireless power transmitters and receivers have been designed into a wide variety of applications, including smart phones, wearables, charging stations and furniture. The company offers semiconductors that support the three major standards groups: the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), the Power Matters Alliance (PMA), and Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), for both magnetic induction and magnetic resonance charging.
In the area of wireless infrastructure, IDT will showcase its RapidIO interconnect technology, used to connect base station traffic throughout LTE deployments globally, with multiple switch semiconductors per base station. IDT’s RapidIO products can also serve as a gateway between processing elements to enable the hyper-fast movement and management of data in high-performance computing systems.
Qualcomm Powers Mobile and Home Connectivity Innovations
Qualcomm Incorporated announced that its subsidiaries, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI) and Qualcomm Atheros, Inc., will showcase an array of connected mobile and home experiences at Mobile World Congress (MWC) that further demonstrates their leadership in next-generation connectivity solutions. Powered by the latest Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ technologies, and leading-edge LTE-Advanced and Wi-Fi connectivity solutions, these experiences illustrate QTI’s continued innovation in delivering more efficient use of bandwidth and improved user experiences.
QTI will feature the first public demonstration of Category 11 LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) Carrier Aggregation (CA) connectivity. Utilizing LTE Category 11 three-channel 60MHz CA and 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), and infrastructure provided by Ericsson, QTI will showcase download speeds of up to 600 Mbps. Such technology is designed to offer OEMs with the latest connectivity options where the 256QAM addition provides enhanced network efficiency, especially in small cell deployments for mobile operators.
Attendees of Mobile World Congress can experience live demonstrations of next-generation mobile connectivity at the Qualcomm booth in Hall 3, Stand #3E10.
Nordic Semiconductor demonstrates IPv6 over Bluetooth Smart and hosts World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen
Nordic unveils its IPv6-ready nRF51 IoT Software Development Kit in Europe and showcases design partners’ Bluetooth Smart and ANT+ product demonstrations. And chess fans get the chance to take on the world’s best player
Ultra low power (ULP) RF specialist Nordic Semiconductor ASA confirms it will showcase its nRF51 IoT Software Development Kit (SDK) and demonstrate IPv6 over Bluetooth® Smart at Mobile World Congress (MWC). In addition, the company announces that World Chess Champion, number 1 ranked player, and Nordic Semiconductor ambassador, Magnus Carlsen, will take on ten lucky chess fans in games of ‘blitz’ chess.
The company also confirms details of exhibits by partner companies that it will be hosting on its booth (6H20), in the Norwegian Pavilion (hosted by Innovation Norway in Hall 6) at MWC. MWC takes place from March 2 to 5, 2015, at Fira Gran Via in Barcelona, Spain.
Nordic’s IPv6 over Bluetooth Smart protocol stack for its nRF51 Series Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) enables small, low cost, ultra-low power Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The nRF51 IoT SDK is a complete IPv6-ready Internet Protocol Suite for the nRF51 Series Bluetooth Smart SoCs. The SDK enables native and interoperable IP-based connectivity between a Bluetooth Smart ‘thing’ and a cloud service. It also enables Bluetooth Smart to be used in large, distributed, cloud-connected, heterogeneous networks such as home, industrial, and enterprise automation.
World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen, was the youngest player to be ranked number one in world chess is the highest-ranking points holder in the history of the game. In 2013, Time magazine ranked Carlsen among the 100 most influential people in the world. Blitz chess is a time-restricted version of the game designed to accelerate outcomes. In addition to his World Chess Champion status, Carlsen is also World Blitz Chess Champion. Taken place Tuesday March 3rd, 14:45 follow by a autograph session.
Nordic’s booth will also host Taiyo Yuden’s new Nordic nRF51822 System-on-Chip (SoC)-based “EYSFJNXX” Bluetooth Smart module. The module integrates the SoC, antenna, and 32-MHz crystal, and is qualified to the Bluetooth specification. It is targeted at applications such as cycle computers, sports & fitness sensors, remote controls, and toys.
Companies from North America, Europe, and Asia which are using Nordic’s nRF51 Series BluetoothSmart (see “About nRF51 Series” below) and ANT+™ solutions in a number of innovative applications will demonstrate and talk about their products on the booth.
Cadence Showcases Advanced Mobile Technologies
Cadence Design Systems, Inc is scheduled to demonstrate its latest advancements and solutions for mobile technology challenges, in collaboration with customers and partners, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015. Visit Cadence’s booth to see demonstrations of the industry’s highest performance and most energy-efficient audio/voice digital signal processing (DSP) intellectual property (IP) cores for system-on-chip (SoC) designs. Visitors can see the Tensilica® HiFi Audio/Voice DSP IP cores as well as fully integrated IP sub-systems featuring Tensilica image/video processor DSP, automotive Ethernet IP, and IP for MIPI protocols.
