CSR said that Ford is using CSR's BlueCore4-ROM Bluetooth silicon in Ford's SYNC in-car communications and entertainment system. The technology offers hands-free operation of personal media players as well as hands-free operation of Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones to make calls and access music. SYNC will be in 12 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models by the end of 2007 and will be standard or optional in nearly every Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicle by the end of 2008.
CSR's technology acts as a hands-free car kit for mobile phone calls. It can automatically access names and numbers on a mobile phone's SIM-based address book into the vehicle using the Bluetooth protocol stack software in conjunction with the firmware running on BlueCore4 silicon.
"The proportion of cars produced with factory-fitted Bluetooth devices is forecast to more than triple during the next five years," predicted Alex Green, research director at IMS Research. "Including the aftermarket, in excess of 50 million Bluetooth-enabled products are projected to be sold into the automotive sector in 2010."
SYNC uses CSR's AEC-Q100 BlueCore4-ROM Plug-n-Go, a single-chip radio and baseband IC that supports enhanced data rates (EDR) of up to 3 Mbps. With on-chip Bluetooth firmware, Plug-n-Go provides a fully compliant Bluetooth system for data and voice communications, incorporating auto-calibration and built-in self-test (BIST) routines to simplify development, type approval and production test. All hardware and device firmware is fully compliant with the Bluetooth v2.0 and EDR specification, including eSCO (enhanced synchronous and connection oriented physical link) for retransmission of dropped voice packets).