The Bluetooth radio core K-D1 from Ericsson gives National Semiconductor a Bluetooth design solution that can be completely ported into its manufacturing process. This enables National Semiconductor to differentiate products for different manufacturing processes and different market segments.

"National's broad portfolio of Bluetooth products, from chip sets to modules to accessories, will be enhanced by our licensing agreement with Ericsson," said Jean-Louis Bories, Executive Vice President of National Semiconductor's IA and Wireless Division. "We are strong believers in Bluetooth and the added value Bluetooth solutions provide customers in applications such as mobile handsets and PDAs. "

"By signing a licensing agreement with National Semiconductor, one of the world's top semiconductor companies, we have taken a big step toward reaching our goal of integrating our Bluetooth solution into mass market consumer products," says Maria Khorsand, President of Ericsson Technology Licensing. "This puts new fuel into the Bluetooth market - where the demand for chips is expected to grow more than 300 percent next year."

The fourth generation radio is the latest in Bluetooth radio design and features complete on-chip integration of the radio front end using a 0.18-micron RFCMOS process with some key features as lowest external components count and no radio sensitive external components. The package includes evaluation hardware and design database, as well as simulation results and schematics. Furthermore, qualified samples manufactured in the foundry mother process are also included. This has been proven to accelerate the process of porting and to minimize engineering efforts.