CSR accelerates Android smart phone race with availability of CSR Synergy for Android

“Android is growing in popularity and is set to be one of the most dominant operating systems in the next generation of smart phones,” commented Raj Gawera, Vice President of Marketing for CSR's Handset Business Unit. “The recent launch of Google’s Nexus One has set a very high standard in terms of features and performance within the developing Android handset market. However it has also opened the door to a whole new range of handsets with enhanced connectivity and location capabilities. By using CSR’s Synergy for Android platform these phones will be easy to develop and deliver the best user experience.”

First announced in February 2009, CSR’s Synergy was the industry’s first multi-radio connectivity software platform to offer overarching support for all wireless technologies in CSR’s Connectivity Centre. The new Synergy for Android is a complete plug-and-play connectivity package for Android and includes support for Bluetooth, FM, Wi-Fi and GPS. Synergy for Android drastically simplifies the integration of multiple wireless technologies, speeding time-to-market and reducing development cost for OEMs by including everything from low-level transport drivers, to high level UI add-ons for Android.

CSR’s new Synergy for Android platform enables OEMs to differentiate their products with advanced connectivity capabilities that the current standard Android platform may not provide. Features include support for Bluetooth v3.0+HS (High Speed), enabling users to transfer large multimedia files between devices, as well as support for developing and new technologies such as Wi-Fi Direct.

Synergy for Android platform also offers performance improvements in wireless technology interoperability and enables advanced new end-user use-cases by allowing multiple radio technologies to act in a co-ordinated, collaborative manner. For example, an NFC radio could be used to pair multiple devices and trigger music streaming or a file transfer over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. This leads to a very intuitive and smooth end-user experience.

CSR Synergy also extends the use cases of Bluetooth technology further within Android-based handsets with support for a variety of profiles including CSR’s proprietary Proximity Pairing technology, image and data file sharing and transfer between devices using BIP and FTP profiles, as well as wireless printing using the BPP profile.

Allan Eriksen, Software Marketing Manager, Handset Business Unit, CSR commented, “The second wave of Android-based handsets is dawning and OEMs have a tough challenge ahead of them, competing with some very strong smart phones already in the market. However because CSR’s Synergy for Android is able to support a richer feature set than the current platform, we can offer designers a real competitive advantage. Not only can we support features that we believe no other platform can, the intelligence and collaborative nature of the software also enables OEMs to provide consumers with new and enhanced end-user experiences. The race is on, but thanks to the plug-and-play nature of the platform, we can significantly reduce the integration time, speeding time to market as well as reducing the overall cost.”

CSR is a member of the Open Handset Alliance, the group of companies driving forward the Android platform. Synergy for Android is available now, and is already being designed into a number of tier one mobile phone products as well as other consumer electronics devices.