New XMM2138 Platform from Infineon Supports Growing Dual-SIM Market

A Dual-SIM mobile phone is one which holds two SIM-cards. Initially, Dual-SIM adapters were made available to use in regular mobile phones to allow them to contain two SIMs, and to switch from one to the other as required. This combination is called a standby Dual-SIM phone. Today leading vendors offer phones that can natively work with two SIMs, both of which may be active at the same time. These are active Dual-SIM phones. Dual-SIM phones are often used to simplify the switch between work and home, or simply allow users to take advantage of attractive call rates on a second SIM for roaming or domestic calls.

The market for Dual-SIM phones is growing significantly. The market research group Strategy Analytics estimates it will double in size from 2009 to 2010 and increase rapidly thereafter to represent at least 7 percent (100 million pieces) of the overall market by 2014. In some regions the Dual-SIM phone segment is estimated to be the fastest growing market segment for mobile phones.

Infineon’s new XMM 2138 Dual-SIM platform is based on the popular and very successful X-GOLD™213 EDGE baseband chip. Besides the mature hardware the platform benefits from the carrier proven Comneon protocol stack and from the Infineon OptiMedia framework. Used in more than 100 million mobile phones, OptiMedia is a market proven multimedia framework, highly optimized for the Infineon baseband chips. It contains robust, high performance codecs for audio, video and imaging as well as proven engines to realize all kinds of multimedia applications. OptiMedia covers all features necessary for entry level phones but also includes unique features to bring high-level user experience to low cost phones. The complete platform solution also includes the Red Arrow MMI (Man Machine Interface) from Infineon.

“With this dedicated design platform for Dual-SIM phones Infineon again underlines its commitment to provide complete and scalable solutions for all mobile phone market segments,” said Ronen Ben-Hamou, Vice President of the Wireless Solutions Division and General Manager of the Business Line Entry Phones at Infineon. “The new Dual-SIM platform XMM 2138 is a turnkey solution and enables our customers to get quicker to this emerging market.”

The XMM 2138 benefits from the common software API layer (UTA) used on other X-GOLD 213 platforms as well as on platforms based on the X-GOLD™116 GSM/GPRS and the X-GOLD™613 HSDPA device. This common interface enables customers to reuse the MMI and other software on different platforms. The software re-usability enabled by the UTA interface and the hardware scalability based on the common ARM11 architecture makes the XMM 2138 an ideal and flexible design platform. This architecture ensures customers a high degree of reuse of their hardware and software investment when developing handsets across the entire Infineon entry phone portfolio.

The new platform supports touch screen, WQVGA display for improved mobile browsing capabilities, Bluetooth for file sharing and WLAN for internet access. In addition it provides high audio and video performance with its on-chip integrated FM radio and the computing power of the ARM11 core in the X-GOLD 213. Furthermore the XMM 2138 supports both standby and active Dual-SIM phones, implying that both SIM are available on the network to receive calls or messages. Powered by a single X-GOLD 213 baseband chip, the optimized protocol stack enables both SIMs to be available on the network simultaneously.