Future mobile phones - complex design challenges from an embedded systems perspective

In the coming few years, three trends for mobile phones will be seen. First, new communication standards provide packet-switched high-bandwidth wireless communication globally. Second, user applications are going from simple phone administration and text messaging to advanced multimedia and entertainment applications. Finally, because of Internet access and security support, the phones have the potential to move into a financial instrument for economical transactions. The article mainly covers the two former trends, and describes key complexity issues and design challenges. The concept of future mobile phones is described; communication capabilities and some emerging user application capabilities are outlined. The article describes and discusses complexity issues and some design challenges, and also provides a summary. Overall, the focus is from the digital system architecture perspective, and does not cover challenges in the areas of radio, antenna, or analog/digital integration