Chip Start-Ups Battle to Provide Network Flexibility for Cellphones
The Wall Street Journal, p.B3

07.25.2005 - Sandbridge Technologies, after four years of effort on Monday is announcing that it has completed the design of a chameleon-like chip that can communicate using different kinds of cellular technologies as well as fast wireless networks such as Wi-Fi. The approach uses software to give cellphones multiple capabilities, which can be modified after they are sold rather than having features set permanently in hardware.
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ARCHITECTURES: Handset integration strategies vary
EE Times, Ron Wilson

07.25.2005 - In contrast, Sandbridge (White Plains, N.Y.) is responding to a potentially more serious problem with a radical change in architecture. The root of the problem appears to be the aborted rollout of 3G networks. Not only has 3G failed to become ubiquitous, but it is not even the primary network for most carriers in most areas. That has forced handset makers to support 2G and 3G air interfaces and basebands in parallel, soon to be augmented by the curtain call of other network interfaces about which handset makers are speculating.
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Sandbridge demos SDR-based processor in multimedia handsets
EE Times, John Walko

07.25.2005 - Wireless chip designer Sandbridge Technologies, Inc. has demonstrated a complete software-radio based multimedia terminal design using its baseband processor.
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Flexible Chips Will Let Phones Do It All
PC World

07.25.2005 - Where Sandbridge might make the biggest impact is in new types of devices, such as digital still or video cameras that can stay connected to the Internet over different kinds of networks depending on location, Baron says. If the company's chips have enough processing power, they could shift the device to the best available network for price, speed or power consumption, based on the user's priorities, he says. That capability might even come in handy in cars, Baron adds.
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MEX: Flexible building blocks
PMN.co.uk, www.mobileuserexperience.com

07.28.2005 - For many years handset development has proceeded along two tracks: devices designed for GSM and devices designed for CDMA. One of the most basic design choices is the baseband processor where these functions are handled and, since these have always been done in hardware, there is relatively little flexibility. In some ways, you could say the user experience starts with this choice.
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Sandbridge Technologies develops programmable cellphone chip
Engadget

07.25.2005 - There’s a new product on the block in the cellphone chip market that’s hoping it can snag some mindshare among handset makers. Sandbridge Technologies’ SB3010 chips are flexible enough to handle a wide range of protocols, multimedia and application processing, which would enable handset makers to built multifunction handsets using a single chip, driving costs down.
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Providing Network Flexibility for Cellphones
Textually.org

07.25.2005 - ... the basic idea of multifunction phones face a chicken-and-egg problem. Though cellphone users now can roam among some networks when they travel, carriers are not exactly eager to let users jump among services in their home market.
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World's First Software-Radio '3G' Processor
3G.co.uk

07.25.2005 - The SB3010 platform departs radically from dedicated baseband hardware by allowing manufacturers to create, test, modify and execute their designs entirely in software. Coupled with intuitive programming tools and a supercomputer class "C" compiler, the SB3010 not only reduces risk, cost, complexity and time-to-market-It uniquely facilitates swift and easy adaptation to multiplying and evolving standards; emerging network requirements like MIMO; and diverse audio and video formats. The SB3010 also provides manufacturers with a method of differentiating and extending the usability of their designs by streamlining the development and integration of new features and applications. View/download PDF article here »
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Software-based 3G baseband promises multi-standard handset connections
EDN

07.25.2005 - The product in question -- Sandbridge Technologies SB3010 (PDF) – is being termed a platform because it includes a processor chip, the algorithms that implement the baseband, and other elements such as a specialized C compiler. The processor integrates an ARM 9 RISC core along with Sandbridge’s own Sandblaster DSP technology. The company claims the processors cumulatively can deliver 10 billion MAC operations per second. Sandbridge states that they are sampling the platform now. View/download PDF article here »
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Sandbridge Unveils Software-Radio 3G Processor
Converge! Network Digest

07.22.2005 - Sandbridge Technologies, a start-up based in White Plains, New York, announced a complete "3G" multimedia handset design utilizing its SB3010 flexible baseband processor to perform all baseband and multimedia functions in software.
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Bridging Functions with Sand
John Peddie’s Tech Watch

16.18.2005 - The Sandblaster ISA employs multi-threaded design with eight hardware threads operate simultaneously - and the software system, claims the company, enables near-limitless software parallelism without the traditional performance penalties associated with task switching.
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Is a Universal, Future-Proof Chip Possible?
Dow Jones Venture Capital Analyst, p.14

06.01.2005 - … chips have the potential, it appears, to radically change the economics of handset manufacturing in two significant ways. First, a single model of phone could be kept on the market for more than one generation of cellular technology. And second, a single model could be adopted to and sold in many different geographic markets, which today differ widely in the levels and kinds of service they offer.
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Tanuj Raja: Leading Wireless Authority and Vice President of
Business Development at Sandbridge Technologies, Inc.
CIPS Connections

May 2005 - Interview by Stephen Ibaraki, I.S.P.
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The World Economic Forum Selects Sandbridge as Tech Pioneer
Unstrung

12.06.2004 - WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. and GENEVA -- The World Economic Forum announced today that it has selected Sandbridge Technologies, Inc. as one of its 29 Technology Pioneers for 2005. This year’s Pioneers represent innovation at its best—ranging broadly from nanotechnology to drug development, renewable energy and wireless.Their work is fundamentally changing the way societies are developing, and the ways people live, work, and play.
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Architecture options for convergent devices
EE Times

10.12.2004 - The wireless phone is transforming into a device with 24/7 connectivity and support for a broad range of integrated, networked applications that will be coupled with private secure storage and always-on Internet service. Interacting with these applications will be an array of expandable I/O options, including Bluetooth-enabled headphones and displays, high-resolution flat-panel monitors, streaming data over ultrawideband and natural language processing. Network connectivity will be maintained seamlessly even while roaming among such networks as Wi-Fi, WiMax and 3G/B3G (beyond 3G).
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Software radio, Radio revolution?
France's Next Generation Internet Foundation

18.05.2004 - Today, the most promising product on the market is called Sandblaster. This chip SDR, designed by the start-up new yorkaise Sandbridge, is compatible with the majority of the standards of mobile telephony 2G and 3G, but also with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and satellite system GPS.
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SMART RADIOS: How the radio changed its spots
From The Economist print edition

12.04.2003 - Smart radios: Radios capable of switching from one wireless standard to another, with nothing more than a dose of new software, are at last emerging from the laboratory.
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BIZ CHINA: Wireless Tech
Clip: CCTV, Biz News

GDS International, Sept. 2003
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Five Wireless Innovators; Sandbridge - Bridging The Gaps
Forbes.com

Scott Woolley, 09.01.2003 - Guenter Weinberger runs a company that is barely two years old, has only 40 employees and has yet to earn a dime. But, boy, does this guy have big dreams. “I don't want to appear too far away from reality,”he says, “but we have the technology to become the next Intel.”

What 78,000-employee Intel is to the PC industry, Weinberger thinks his shop, Sandbridge Technologies, can be to the cell phone industry--which spent $20 billion on chips last year.
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In-Stat/MDR's 2002 Microprocessor Forum to Headline More than
15 First Public Disclosures of Microarchitectures and Chips
In-Stat

San Jose, California, 08.12.2002 - In-Stat/MDR's 2002 Microprocessor Forum, being held in San Jose, CA from October 14 through 17, will feature over 15 first public disclosures of new microprocessor chips and architectures from companies like AMD, ARM, Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC), Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Fujitsu, IBM Microelectronics, Intel, Motorola, NEC Corporation, Sandbridge Technologies, Inc., Tensilica, and VIA. The event will also include seminars by In-Stat/MDR analysts Max Baron, Peter N. Glaskowsky, Kevin Krewell and Markus Levy.
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Wireless wonder: Sandbridge Technologies racks up $26.5M
for reprogrammable chip technology
Westchester County Business Journal

ALEX PHILIPPIDIS, 08.04.2003 - With millions of dollars in venture capital on hand, a White Plains semiconductor company said it will spend the next year bringing to market a new technology that promises to change how the world uses cell phones, PDAs and other wireless devices.
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Fresh finance takes Sandbridge commercial
3G Mobile devices

07.09.2003 - U.S.- based fabless semiconductor startup Sandbridge is ready to produce working examples of its software-defined radio solutions, following the completion of
its second round of financing via investment by Siemens Venture Capital.
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Chipmaker Sandbridge packs in standards
CNET News.com

Ben Charny, 06.30.2003 - Sandbridge Technologies said Monday that it's the first chipmaker to pack an entire world of cell phone standards into a single handset.

The White Plains, N.Y.-based company will begin shipping the chips this year to handset makers, and the first “world phones” will appear by the end of 2004, according to Sandbridge spokesman Jeffrey Schwartz. “That's three to five years ahead of what people thought,” he said.
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Sandbridge Blasts Off at MPF
A Multithreaded Compound ISA for DSP Applications

By Max Baron - Very seldom, if ever, does one get an opportunity to develop from scratch a new low-power architecture and an advanced compiler. Most processor vendors can claim to have created both hardware and breakthrough software, but Sandbridge Technologies may be the one to have taken, at inception, the extra step that brings technology closer to its peak. Many recently introduced DSP architectures have concentrated on delivering workload-optimized performance via massively parallel processing at lower frequencies; some of these powerful cores are intended to work in tandem with a generic DSP and a general-purpose processor. Architects at Sandbridge, however, decided to adhere to multiprocessor configurations and—in order to extract performance—opted for operation at higher frequencies. It is fortunate that, in their quest for performance, the architects were forced to take a fresh look at compilers.
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Sandbridge's SandBlaster DSP and Tensilica's FLIX

Intel's HyperThreading technology looks like child's play compared to SandBridge's new 8-way multithreading capable DSP (digital signal processor) targeted at 3G wireless devices. Replicating and sharing a number of processor resources (that takes about 15% more die area than a hypothetical single-threaded version), up to 8 threads can execute simultaneously in this chip. Apparently, the algorithms and processing steps required for 3G communications can be efficiently allocated across multiple threads and executed simultaneously. The Sandblaster is capable of processing 10 billion multiply/accumulate operations per second, and consumes less than 500 milliwatts on average. Special logic ensures no single thread can dominate the instruction cache, as each thread is only capable of evicting its own specific subset of cache lines. Note that threads can read instruction cache lines from other threads, so that cache is considered to be shared among threads. For power savings, if a thread is not used, it is turned off, and any functional units not presently used can be temporarily powered down.
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SandBridge Core Eyes Software-Defined Radio

Sandbridge's Sandblaster DSP and SB3000 baseband processor were designed for the multitude of standards surrounding wireless: everything from GSM and WAP protocols, to multimedia-specific algorithms like MPEG-4, to applications languages like Java. By 2006, 140 million of the 700 million mobile phones will have a digital camera attached, according to analyst firm In-Stat/MDR.

The reprogrammable nature of the core allows designers to specify which wireless algorithm the core needs to process at one time, the "software definition" of software-defined radio.
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