networkZONE Products for the week of September 8, 2003

Broadcom Says…
Broadcom Ships World's First Single-Chip Wi-Fi Solution
AirForce One^tm Chip Makes Wi-Fi Practical for PDAs, Cell Phones, Digital Cameras, MP3 Players and Other Portable Devices Complete Reference Designs Reduce Power Consumption and Size by More Than 85% Compared to Existing Solutions

Broadcom is now shipping the world's first single-chip Wi-Fi solution. Broadcom's AirForce One^tm Chip wireless LAN solutions are the size of a postage stamp and consume an average of 85 percent less power than other Wi-Fi solutions on the market. The unprecedented size and efficiency of the OneChip offering makes Wi-Fi connectivity practical for a wide range of pocket-size electronic devices for the first time.

"Wireless LANs have seen explosive growth in recent years, due to the proliferation of Wi-Fi technology," said Tim Bajarin, Principal Analyst of research firm Creative Strategies. "Until now, wireless connectivity has been primarily confined to PCs, due to the power and size demands of traditional wireless LAN chipsets. The introduction of Broadcom's single-chip solution is a revolutionary breakthrough for the wireless industry -- one that will reach previously untapped markets and generate endless possibilities for consumers."

Integration, Size Enable New Generation of Wireless Devices
Broadcom was the first vendor to deliver all-CMOS wireless LAN and Bluetooth solutions, and has leveraged this expertise to produce the first single-chip, all-CMOS wireless LAN transceiver. While competing products require multiple chips and many discrete components, Broadcom's OneChip solution integrates a 2.4 GHz radio, power amplifier, 802.11b baseband processor, Medium Access Controller (MAC), and all other radio components onto a single silicon die. This high level of chip integration eliminates more than 100 components and makes the OneChip module 85 percent smaller than traditional Wi-Fi solutions.

"Mobile device manufacturers continue to drive requirements for silicon integration by adding exciting new capabilities into smaller form factors," said Lanny Ross, President and CEO of Broadcom. "By leveraging superior communications technology and unparalleled mixed signal CMOS expertise, Broadcom's OneChip solution meets the size, cost and power requirements of compact mobile devices. This opens the door for us to enable countless new markets and further extend our communications leadership."

Innovative Power Management Extends Battery Life
The AirForce One^tm solution offers a comprehensive power management scheme to extend the battery life of small mobile devices. This power management approach leverages the benefits of extreme integration, innovative hardware design and Broadcom's new SuperStandby software. SuperStandby wakes the minimum amount of circuitry for the shortest possible period of time to check for incoming data, allowing the AirForce One^tm Chip module to consume 97 percent less power than the Intel Centrino wireless LAN solution in standby mode. Since mobile devices spend a majority of their time in standby, the power savings offered by SuperStandby mode can add several days of battery life to a PDA equipped with OneChip connectivity.

Increasingly Affordable Wi-Fi Solutions
Broadcom's AirForce One^tm Chip design is the industry's most cost effective architecture for Wi-Fi chipsets. To facilitate the adoption of AirForce One^tm Chip in new wireless-enabled devices, Broadcom is sampling three reference designs that lower wireless LAN implementation costs and accelerate time-to-market for manufacturers. These designs simplify the building of cost-effective modules by drastically reducing the number of off-chip components and allowing concurrent RF and silicon testing. Mobile device vendors can integrate efficiently because of the module's small size and Broadcom's OneDriver software toolkit.

Complete Wireless LAN Functionality in a Miniature Form Factor
In addition to the unique benefits afforded by a single-chip solution, the AirForce One^tm solution leverages Broadcom's CMOS hardware expertise and proven OneDriver software to deliver the superior performance, range and security features of its industry-leading wireless LAN chipsets. The OneDriver software includes all requirements for submission to Wi-Fi labs for certification testing, provides maximum stability and flexibility across Broadcom's entire line of AirForce wireless LAN products and enables a comprehensive portfolio of features, including: radio noise conditions:

• The industry's most comprehensive security portfolio, including certified Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and Cisco Compatible Extensions (CCX), as well as built-in hardware support for the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
• Xpress frame-bursting technology to improve the efficiency and increase overall throughput of a wireless network

Broadcom's AirForce Wireless LAN Product Family
Broadcom's high performance WLAN product line, AirForce One^tm, features the greatest breadth and depth in the industry. In addition to transceivers that provide IEEE 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11a and dual-band 802.11a/g solutions, Broadcom integrates wireless network processors, communications technologies and OneDriver software solutions into reference designs that speed customer time to market. Broadcom partners are developing AirForce One^tm-based client solutions, routers, access points, cable modems, DSL modems, Bluetooth solutions and GPRS cellular products.

analogZONE Says . . .

Broadcom's new AirForce One^tm Chip (BCM4317) is a one-chip solution that is well-targeted at an emerging category of cost- and power-sensitive applications where the 11 Mbit/s data rates supported by 802.11b-level is good enough. They are one of several manufacturers who are looking beyond the notebook/AP market into mobile devices, MP-3 players, digital cameras, etc to form the bulk of the market within 2 - 3 years. I think we can get a reasonable hint of where these devices will find a home by looking at the wired USB connections are currently used. And much like USB this market, where size, cost, and power will be the driving functions, is well-suited for an architecture like Broadcom's which places a bit less emphasis on speed and range.

The AirForce One^tm Chip is an aggressively-integrated version of Broadcom's earlier two-chip solution. It incorporates the same all-CMOS direct-conversion radio and MAC/baseband elements that were previously on separate chips, plus an on-chip PA with an output of -12 dBm. All you need to do to get a fully-functional 802.11b radio is add two simple low-pass filters (Tx & Rx), a crystal, a serial memory, and a thimbleful of passives. Besides lowering component and assembly costs, slashing the passive count saves tons of board space. In fact, it has allowed Broadcom to offer an extremely compact reference design that's less than 15 x 27 mm, and about as thin as a dime. This compact form factor will make it an excellent candidate for embedded applications in cell phones or PDAs.

Broadcom has also spent a lot of time improving its power efficiency -- especially in the standby mode. The chip adheres to IEEE's power-savings mode, and goes beyond with improvements in it -- turning off any unnecessary logic block until it is needed.

The result is that the radio now draws 570 mW during full-power transmit, a bit over 300 mW in receive mode, and a mere 6 mW in standby. This is a good thing since in most embedded applications the device will spend most of its time in sleep mode, sipping current and waiting for an incoming or outgoing packet.

Another big bonus of the low part count is that it has allowed Broadcom to develop its reference design as a single-sided board, saving a manufacturer either tons on producing a one-sided module, or using the flip side to implement a Bluetooth transceiver! Having both radios as neighbors on the same card also makes it easy to implement Broadcom's exclusive scheme to permit better co-existence between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The serial link and associated logic supports simple communication between transceivers to coordinate transmit power and keep them from transmitting simultaneously or stepping all over each other's incoming signals.

All this is very impressive, but I have also stated my reservations about Broadcom's direct-conversion architecture in earlier reviews at a previous publication. They've been very light on details of design or performance but I can infer several things from past experience with other chips. For one thing, I always worry about how the radiated and substrate noise created by an on-chip PA can affect receiver performance. And then there is the fact that a CMOS PA can never be as power-efficient or linear as an external PA, done in RF CMOS or some bipolar process. This being said, I think that given the less demanding PSK-based modulation used by the slower "b" standard, Broadcom has most likely been able to make the necessary trade-offs to come up with a workable solution that hits the difficult price and power targets without sacrificing too much performance.

There will be some embedded applications, such as dealing with streaming video channels from set-top boxes that would be beyond the capabilities of an 802.11b radio, but I'd agree with Broadcom's assessment that the way Wi-Fi will be used in most products today is far less demanding. Given this, I'd say that the AirForce One^tm Chip is well-positioned to garner a share of the emerging embedded Wi-Fi market. I'll also be very curious to see if they can deliver a single-chip 802.11g 54-Mbit/s product that delivers acceptable performance. My guess is they will produce something that does, but it will probably not offer the best range in the world and require an external PA.

The BCM4317 is currently sampling to early adopters. Broadcom was very dodgey about the price of their chip, but did imply that they expect the full BOM including assembly cost for a full-up Wi-Fi module (no Bluetooth) will be under $15 in high-volume production quantities.

Lee's Saltshaker Rating

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