Sticklike Pen Phone rewrites the rules
Haier Group’s P5 penphone, a tidy 66-gram, 18-mm-wide
(0.72-inch), sticklike device, is reportedly breaking new ground in component commoditization, driving rapid
product experimentation and novel designs:
Bells and whistles are surprisingly plentiful in the Pen Phone. Polyphonic
ring tones, storage for 300 names and numbers, and a 15-minute
voice-recording capability add up to an impressive feature set in the
diminutive package. Respectable talk/standby specs of about two hours and
three days, respectively, are claimed for the 420-mA-hr internal lithium-ion
battery. As an intriguing twist, Haier even added a laser pointer to the
P5-likely with noticeable drag on battery life if heavily used.Noteworthy for both form factor and general fit-and-finish, the Haier phone
employs highly integrated core devices from merchant IC suppliers-in this
case a Texas two-step. Texas Instruments Inc. (Dallas) supplies analog and
digital baseband ICs while the Aero transceiver chip set from Silicon Labs
(Austin) provides the direct-conversion radio.Four megabytes of Intel Corp. flash memory is paired with the internal SRAM
of the TI baseband chip for system memory. The widely used RF3110 power
amplifier module from RF Micro Devices (Greensboro, N.C.) drives a patch
antenna that’s appliqued to the interior casing. Component count and
semiconductor die area are both remarkably low in the P5, paralleling the
falling barriers to entry for handset manufacturers worldwide as reference
designs, component integration and simplification all continue.Cost of goods sold for the P5 handset is driving toward the $40 mark…
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