A Brief Overview of the Technology

A Brief Overview of the Technology
Each successive generation of cellular technology has been based on a new enabling
technology. By new, we often mean the availability of an existing technology at low
cost, or, for handset designers, the availability of a technology sufficiently powerefficient
to be used in a portable device. For example:

First generation (1G). AMPS/ETACS handsets in the 1980s required low-cost
microcontrollers to manage the allocation of multiple RF (radio frequency)
channels (833 × 30 kHz channels for AMPS, 1000 × 25 kHz channels for ETACS)
and low-cost RF components that could provide acceptable performance at
800/900 MHz.

Second generation (2G). GSM, TDMA, and CDMA handsets in the 1990s
required low-cost digital signal processors (DSPs) for voice codecs and related
baseband processing tasks, and low-cost RF components that could provide
acceptable performance at 800/900 MHz, 1800 MHz, and 1900 MHz.
Third generation (3G). W-CDMAand CDMA2000 handsets require�"in addition
to low-cost microcontrollers and DSPs�"low-cost, low power budget CMOS or
CCD image sensors; low-cost, low power budget image and video encoders;
low-cost, low power budget memory; low-cost RF components that can provide
acceptable performance at 1900/2100 MHz; and high-density battery technologies.