Zyray Puts New ‘Spinner’ on Old Technology
BY BRAD GRAVES
Staff Writer
Fabric hook-and-loop fasteners, the crackly stuff that holds tennis shoes and jackets together, is the stuff Zyray Wireless executives use to describe how they’ll take cell phones to new extremes.
They want to stick one thing on another.
Basically, the young San Diego company wants to affix new technology to current-technology wireless phone chips.
By doing so, they hope to soup-up wireless phones and personal digital assistants, while reducing the project’s expense and time to market.
“Spinner” is the name of Zyray’s emerging chip line.
The company is 18 months into its first Spinner project, said Mike Civiello, a company vice president. Zyray hopes to have samples of the chip ready by January, he said, adding that final production could be in the second half of 2003 or early 2004.
The new chip would sit literally side-by-side with a current technology chip.
The company has bigger plans. It’s working on a second Spinner chip that could give a phone even more capabilities. That product could be ready in the second quarter of 2004.
Zyray employs 36 people, mostly engineers. The 2-year-old company has attracted the notice of Reed Business Information. The publisher in August ranked it 10th on its list of 50 Companies to Watch in 2002.
Backing the company are Mission Ventures of San Diego, Formative Ventures of Los Gatos and EDF Ventures of Ann Arbor, Mich.
So what does Spinner do?
Spinner is a chip that, according to Civiello, can piggyback on Global System for Mobile Communications technology. Also called GSM, that’s the preferred wireless technology for telecom carriers Cingular, AT & T; Wireless and T-Mobile.
What Zyray wants Spinner to do is give GSM devices the power to send and receive more data by converting them to Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, or WCDMA.
It’s a “fatter pipe” for signals, Civiello said.
The fatter pipe could put more voice calls into the wireless network. It could also pave the way for more exotic services, such as videos on the cell phone screen.
Zyray’s Spinner baseband chip would work in concert with GSM (or GPRS) baseband chips made by companies like Texas Instruments, Philips or Hitachi.
“We see this as extended life for GSM chips,” said Civiello.
The GSM and WCDMA combination is called “dual mode.” Company officials maintain dual-mode chips can cost between $50 and $95. Civiello said Zyray hopes to get chip cost under $20.
At the same time, executives say the approach of putting new technology on top of old can speed time to market.
Company promotional materials call it “the shortcut to dual mode.”
The second Spinner chip project would connect such phones to “802.11” networks. That’s the technology that lets people with laptop computers surf the Internet wirelessly while in “hot spots” , specially wired coffeehouses or public buildings.
Civiello said the technical hurdles to merging GSM, WCDMA and 802.11 are great. They include interference with a range of devices that use the same radio spectrum.
Power consumption is also a concern: 802.11 can sap wireless phone batteries quickly.
The company proposes to solve the problem with what it calls ” space-time processing technology” that involves the optimum use of multiple antennas.
Again, the technology would attach to earlier technology.
The Spinner STP chip would attach to both the GSM chip and the earlier Spinner chip.
