IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 9 -- Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced that it has extended its portfolio of Bluetooth® system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions to enable mobile phones (and other devices) to wirelessly track and monitor health and fitness indicators. Broadcom's implementation of the Bluetooth Health Devices Profile (HDP) helps expand the Bluetooth ecosystem to include very low power health and fitness sensors enabled by Bluetooth.
Broadcom is demonstrating its Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology at next week's 2010 Mobile World Congress, and will showcase how the company is making Bluetooth more relevant to people's lives and expanding it to a new range of low power devices.
Highlights/Key Facts:
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has ratified the BLE specification enabling a new wave of Bluetooth applications that connect devices with very low power requirements, including monitoring devices that use coin-sized batteries.
BLE solutions will enable Bluetooth technology to be utilized in more wireless and mobile products than ever before.
The opportunity for BLE solutions is significant, building upon Bluetooth, a technology that consumers already know and that has already been adopted in billions of electronic devices.
The ease with which Bluetooth low energy solutions can be added into cell phones will help consolidate the market for low power consuming devices around Bluetooth rather than the existing handful of proprietary technologies.
Broadcom's new HDP profile enables mobile phones (and other devices) to conveniently connect to sensors and monitors for aggregating and displaying small amounts of data, allowing users to track the progress of workouts or monitor their heart rate, displaying this information on their handset screens.
Broadcom's BLE SoC solutions include extensive hardware and software innovations that will be made available across many of the company's Bluetooth products over the coming year.
The first of these BLE offerings includes the Broadcom® InConcert® BCM2049 Bluetooth combo chip that supports BLE dual-mode operation. This cost-effective, high performance solution enables mobile phone manufacturers to extend the user experience of their handset products by supporting the coming wave of Bluetooth low energy devices.
The BCM2049 is compliant with the BLE standard and has achieved qualification from the Bluetooth SIG qualification program.
Making BLE broadly available in mobile phones will provide another connectivity option for developers of phone applications who seek to offer new and novel software products to handset users.
Broadcom has been pushing Bluetooth into a greater range of products beyond more traditional hands-free and wireless peripheral applications, targeting remote controls for digital televisions and digital music players. BLE technology makes Bluetooth even more attractive for these applications and now adds health and fitness devices to the mix.
Supporting Quotes:
Craig Ochikubo, Vice President & General Manager, Broadcom's Wireless Personal Area Networking line of business
"We continue to introduce technology and products that expand the Bluetooth ecosystem, broadening the universe of devices that can connect to smartphones and other mobile products. Our expanded BLE offering gives the smartphone more direct insight into its owner's health and fitness, enabling a new level of personalization and life style enrichment than ever before possible."
Subscribe to RSS Feed:
Broadcom Wireless Connectivity Group
About Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is a major technology innovator and global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications. Broadcom products enable the delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia to and throughout the home, the office and the mobile environment. We provide the industry's broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art system-on-a-chip and software solutions to manufacturers of computing and networking equipment, digital entertainment and broadband access products, and mobile devices. These solutions support our core mission: Connecting everything®.
Broadcom, one of the world's largest fabless communications semiconductor companies, with 2009 revenue of $4.49 billion, holds more than 3,800 U.S. and 1,550 foreign patents, and has more than 7,800 additional pending patent applications, and one of the broadest intellectual property portfolios addressing both wired and wireless transmission of voice, video, data and multimedia.
A FORTUNE 500® company, Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. Broadcom may be contacted at +1.949.926.5000 or at www.broadcom.com.
Cautions regarding Forward-Looking Statements:
All statements included or incorporated by reference in this release, other than statements or characterizations of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry and business, management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us, all of which are subject to change. Forward-looking statements can often be identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "predicts," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will," "should," "would," "could," "potential," "continue," "ongoing," similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words. Examples of such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the demand for personal fitness/health tracking and monitoring capabilities in smartphones, our position in that market, and references to the impact of BLE solutions on the consolidation of the market for low power consuming devices. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statement.
Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom in connection with adding Bluetooth low energy support to chip and software solutions include, but are not limited to:
the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Broadcom's Bluetooth technologies for wireless applications;
trends in the wireless networking markets in various geographic regions, including seasonality in sales of consumer products into which our products are incorporated;
the gain or loss of a key customer, design win or order;
the volume of our product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales;
our ability to timely and accurately predict market requirements and evolving industry standards and to identify opportunities in new markets; and
competitive pressures and other factors such as the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products.
Additional factors that may cause Broadcom's actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to the list that can be found at http://www.broadcom.com/press/additional_risk_factors/Q12010.php
Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, recent Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss the foregoing risks as well as other important risk factors that could contribute to such differences or otherwise affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. The forward-looking statements in this release speak only as of this date. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement, except as required by law.
Broadcom, the pulse logo, Connecting everything, the Connecting everything logo and InConcert® are among the trademarks of Broadcom Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States, certain other countries and/or the EU. Any other trademarks or trade names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
