Wireless carriers and phone manufacturers both make heavy use of semiconductors when they build their systems. The fiber optic cables that feed cell towers and the network switches that route contacts are all based around them. These are some of the most prominent ways they’ve made a mark in the mobile phone industry and why they matter to the future.
1. Switching Calls
Telephone company central office buildings are loaded with racks of what are known as dedicated soft switches. These devices are essentially mainframe computers that run special software designed to route calls and text messages throughout the publicly switched network. When someone dials a particular number, their wireless carrier sends the call into one of these switches and it locates the person on the other end of the line. Once the switch connects the two parties, it also opens the call up for them.
2. Connecting Different Classes Of Devices Together
Telephony equipment was originally designed to help people communicate. A majority of traffic sent through the network is now automated, however, and that’s created a need for specialized semiconductor packages that can keep all of these different pieces of gear communicating with one another. Vehicular mobile devices and industrial sensors all need modules that are small enough to fit on moving objects without weighing them down. Transistorized parts are much smaller than conventional mechanical relays, so technicians have been able to hook all of this gear together. A few next-generation chips are so small that technicians actually need special lenses to see them.
3. Processing App Packages
A majority of apps on the Android platform are written in various Java-like languages that require the use of a virtual machine emulator to function. Running one of these in user space would be very difficult and take up a substantial amount of processing power that could be better used doing something else. As a result, dedicated semiconductor packages have been installed in a number of phones to tackle this chore away from the main central microchip.
Interestingly enough, phones that make use of Apple’s ecosystem normally run apps developed with a completely different set of software tools. Engineers have therefore decided to optimize their designs around a very different architecture. Nevertheless, this design still makes heavy use of semiconductors.
4. Reduce Size And Weight
Early-generation computers were normally built around vacuum tubes, which also provided the bulk of their weight. Telephone network switches were once giant affairs. Current generation phone handsets use transistors to amplify and switch signals, which has slashed their size by many orders of magnitude. It also means they consume much less power. If cell phone designers were required to use hollow state electronics to build their equipment, then wireless customers would have to lug around massive batteries everywhere they went.
Pundits say that innovation in the mobile space might be slowing down. Regardless of whether or not it is, one thing is clear. Semiconductors will still serve as the base of any new equipment that comes out in the foreseeable future.