The race has been on since June when the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) adopted its Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) specifications to pack more functionality onto a single Bluetooth chip. Looks like RF Micro Devices has taken a significant step by sampling a chip that supports a 3-Mbit per second data rate. It'll be interesting to see how the device manufacturers react to this development as RF Micro Devices and others seek to develop faster and more powerful Bluetooth chips.

Compliant with the Bluetooth 1.2 and EDR specs, RF Micro’s SiW4000 chip integrates an ARM7TDMI processor to handle baseband-processing tasks, plus a direct-conversion radio front end that includes 50-ohm matching at the antenna port. The SoC also includes a fractional-N synthesizer, an on-chip low-dropout regulator that allows the IC to hook directly to a battery and an optional regulator that allows developers to use the chip in a switching mode.

Cambridge Silicon Radio announced sample availability of a Bluetooth core with EDR features earlier this summer, and said it would be in full production in September. It also announced a ROM-only version of the chip, which is to sample in the third quarter and enter production in the fourth.

The new modulation schemes needed for EDR required silicon-level changes in RF Micro’s designs. The company had to make hardwired changes in the baseband portion of its existing Bluetooth design in order to support the phase-shift keying modulation schemes. Additionally, RF Micro says it increased the speed of the chip’s UART interface and added a synchronous serial interface to support higher-throughput transfers to chips connecting to the Bluetooth IC.