CSR Chip Shipments Pass the 100 Million Mark; With Single Chip ICs from Manufacturing Partner, ASE.CAMBRIDGE, England -- CSR plc CSR (LSE: CSR), or Cambridge Silicon Radio is a company based in Cambridge, England whose main product line is a single-chip implementation of the Bluetooth standard for radio-signal communication between devices. CSR is a fabless semiconductor manufacturer. (LSE LSE - Language Sensitive Editor : CSR (1) (Customer Service Representative) A person who handles a customer's request regarding a bill, account changes or service or merchandise ordered. Agents in call centers are known as CSRs. See call center. .L), the global leader in Bluetooth technology, today announced that it has shipped over 100 million Bluetooth chips since its foundation, with devices manufactured by Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE (Adaptive Server Enterprise) A relational DBMS from Sybase that runs on Windows NT/2000, Linux and a variety of Unix platforms. ASE is a comprehensive and robust data management product with a long history dating back to the late 1980s. ). This significant milestone reflects the fact that Bluetooth is growing in popularity for existing applications such as mono headsets and mobile phone handsets. Bluetooth is also being adopted in wider applications such as in-car infotainment and newer applications such as stereo music streaming. Over 100 million Bluetooth chips were manufactured and shipped from the Chung Li Chung Li (b. 1967) is a Chinese karate practitioner. Representing China in 1990, Li won the first competition in which females were allowed to participate, making her the first female to win an International Karate Championship. (ASECL) and Kaohsiung (ASEK) facilities of ASE, a well-established, long-term partner of CSR. As the world's leading semiconductor assembly and test service company, ASE has made strategic investments in capacity and technology, enabling it to meet CSR's escalating demand for packaged Bluetooth chips. "The recent fire at ASECL, has caused some disruption in the delivery of CSR's BlueCore chips," noted John Hodgson, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. , CSR. "However, ASE has quickly deployed manpower, material, and equipment to alternative ASE facilities at Chung Li, Kaohsiung, and Shanghai and is working hard to satisfy our customer orders in the shortest possible time." He continued, "Our team has been working closely with ASE for over five years. We appreciate the company's excellent semiconductor assembly and test solutions, backed by a superior customer service and support organisation. We look forward to continuing this relationship as we collaborate on advanced packaging technologies for our leading-edge Bluetooth chips." CSR's wafer fabrication partner is the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation TSMC Traffic Systems Management Center TSMC Toll Station Management Controller TSMC Transportation Supply Maintenance Command TSMC Technical Services Manager Code ) "The past twelve months have seen huge growth in the number of Bluetooth-enabled devices," Hodgson continued. "Consumers now expect their mobile handsets to incorporate Bluetooth, a demand which device manufacturers have understood and built into their designs." Demonstrating this trend, Samsung launched its first Bluetooth-enabled GSM handset at the end of 2004 and CSR counts other global players such as LG, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic and Sharp among its cellular customers. Embedded Bluetooth is also gaining more ground in PC hardware, in-car infotainment and handsfree systems, home entertainment and personal music systems. "The speed with which we have reached over 100 million chips shipped, indicates the strength of demand for Bluetooth in the global market," added Glenn Collinson, sales director and co-founder of CSR. "Innovative generations of BlueCore like BlueCore3-Multimedia are now pushing the boundaries of Bluetooth. Popular applications such as wireless stereo headsets which can connect to a phone and separate music sources, handling calls as they are received, are now a mass-market reality." About CSR CSR plc is the leading global provider of Bluetooth technology and has developed expertise in other single-chip wireless communication standards such as Wi-Fi (IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, www.ieee.org) A membership organization that includes engineers, scientists and students in electronics and allied fields. 802.11). CSR offers developed hardware/software solutions for Bluetooth based around BlueCore, a fully integrated 2.4 GHz radio, baseband and microcontroller. CSR is now producing its fourth generation BlueCore devices. BlueCore4 supports the Enhanced Data Rate (EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) An acronym occasionally used to reflect an advancement in transmission or transfer speed. For example, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR provides a dramatic increase in speed over the previous version. See Bluetooth. ) standard which was ratified at the end of 2004. BlueCore4 remains the only EDR silicon to be shipping in volume today. In November 2004 CSR launched UniFi, the first single chip 802.11a/b/g embedded solution specifically targeting the mobile phone and consumer electronics markets. BlueCore features in over 51 per cent of all Bluetooth devices shipped and over 60 per cent of all qualified Bluetooth enabled products and modules listed on the Bluetooth website with industry leaders including Nokia, Dell, Panasonic, Sharp, Motorola, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Apple, NEC (NEC Corporation, Tokyo, www.nec.com, www.necus.com) An electronics conglomerate known in the U.S. for its monitors. In Japan, it had the lion's share of the PC market until the late 1990s (see PC 98). NEC was founded in Tokyo in 1899 as Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. , Toshiba, RIM and Sony using BlueCore devices in their range of Bluetooth products. In March 2005, CSR acquired Clarity Technologies Inc., for its Clear Voice Capture (CVC See CSC. ) technology that enhances the audio performance of any voice-based product or system. Applications for CVC include wireless headsets, handsets and automotive hands free systems. CSR has its headquarters in Cambridge, UK, and offices in Richardson, Texas, USA; Tokyo, Japan; Seoul, Korea; Taipei, Taiwan; Aalborg, Denmark; and Lund, Sweden. More information can be found at www.csr.com and the partner web site www.btdesigner.com More information about Bluetooth technology can be found on the SIG web site at www.bluetooth.com |
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