Broadcom enters the WLAN chipset market..
biz.yahoo.com
Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM - news), the leading provider of integrated circuits enabling broadband communications, today announced the industry's first all-CMOS, direct-conversion wireless local area networking (WLAN) chipset solutions. The new product family implements the IEEE 802.11b wireless networking standard (also known as Wi-Fi). Broadcom's unique architecture allows WLAN providers to add security and performance while dramatically lowering manufacturing costs.
Wireless LAN semiconductors are found in products gaining momentum in enterprise, small business, home, and public access applications. According to market research firm Cahners In-Stat, the WLAN chipset market will grow from $319 million in 2001 to over $1 billion by 2004.
``Broadcom's entrance into this burgeoning segment of the networking market is a major element of our vision to enable ubiquitous broadband connectivity,'' said Dr. Henry T. Nicholas, III, president and CEO of Broadcom. ``Our commitment to engineering excellence has yielded technology that we believe will catalyze the next growth phase of the wireless LAN industry.''
Innovation in Architecture and Product Features
Broadcom's wireless LAN offerings, the Broadcom® BCM2051 2.4GHz direct-conversion radio and the BCM430x family of baseband processors, contain a number of industry-first innovations. These silicon solutions are the first IEEE 802.11b-compliant chipsets to be implemented in a standard digital CMOS process, which represents the lowest possible silicon cost approach to wireless radio and enables new product price points via chipset integration.
Broadcom's highly integrated, two-chip solutions also employ a direct-conversion radio architecture that minimizes cost, number of components and footprint while improving product reliability and manufacturability. The BCM430x baseband processors are optimized to significantly outperform existing solutions in the hostile multi-path signal environments often found in the enterprise and home.
Enhanced Security
The Medium Access Controller (MAC) designed into the Broadcom baseband processors provides hardware-based security that meets customer needs across all market segments. In addition to the 40-bit encryption specified by the IEEE 802.11 Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) standard, the BCM430x family includes hardware support of the 128-bit extension of WEP, 802.1x, Temporal Key Initiation Protocol (TKIP) as well as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) protocol planned for the forthcoming IEEE security specification (IEEE 802.11 TGi). Hardware support of encryption/decryption improves performance and significantly lowers host-CPU utilization in both client and access device configurations.
``The BCM2051/BCM430x chipset family raises the bar for wireless LAN product features, performance and cost,'' said Jeff Abramowitz, Broadcom's senior director, wireless LAN marketing. ``Moreover, Broadcom's integration capabilities enable us to enter the market with the industry's broadest range of multifunction products.''
The Product Family
The BCM2051 is a direct-conversion CMOS IC. This single-chip radio combines with any BCM430x chip to deliver a complete IEEE 802.11b solution. The BCM430x family of Wi-Fi baseband processors includes the BCM4301, with combined wireless LAN baseband processor and MAC functionality, the BCM4302, which adds simultaneous V.92 modem functionality, the BCM4304, which adds simultaneous 10/100 Ethernet functionality, and the BCM4307 which adds both V.92 modem and 10/100 Ethernet functionality. Samples of the BCM430x family and the BCM2051 as well as the related BCM9430x evaluation platforms are currently shipping to Broadcom's early access partners.
boards.fool.com
The most important part of this announcement is the fact that Broadcom has again used its expertise in CMOS to one up the competition. In my earlier research on Intersil, I noticed that they use Silicon Germanium, which is an effective technology but is also more expensive. We'll have to see how the BCM2051 performs in the market. However, I can see Intersil having some problems competing since Broadcom's extensive expertise in a wide range of networking technologies will allow them to integrate many different components onto a single chip. Obviously, it is too early to draw any definite conclusions but they have done this many times in the past so I definitely wouldn't count them out. Something that Broadcom is most famous for is waiting for a market to hit critical mass and then jump in and force the other competitors out (this is what happenned in the ethernet market). It would appear that WiFi has now reached that ideal point in its TALC. |
