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New
WLAN Chips Take On Video, Voice
By
John Cox
Network
World, 1/05/05
LAS
VEGAS -- Chip makers are showcasing their next-generation
wireless LAN chips at the Consumer Electronics Show this week,
with many of the silicon advances focused on multimedia applications.
Many
of these vendors are targeting residential applications, although
the advances in QoS (quality of service) and performance,
and the ability to better handle streaming media such as voice,
will impact both home and corporate wireless deployments.
Intel
Updates Centrino
Intel,
the biggest name in chips, will later this week unveil more
details about the next version, code-named Napa, of its Centrino
mobile package of chips and firmware. Last fall Intel officials
said Napa will feature the company's first dual-core mobile
processor as well as improved memory and wireless chip sets,
but didn't go into details. Speculation is that the Napa wireless
chip set, called Golan, will include WiMAX, a standard for
broadband wireless.
In the
meantime Intel is preparing to ship the current Centrino version,
called Sonoma, sometime in the first quarter of 2006. Among
other wrinkles, Centrino will incorporate Intel's own 802.11a/b/g
chip set. Consumers can expect to see by the end of this year
scores of laptops featuring the Sonoma components.
Faster
Home Networking With MIMO
Atheros
Communications is demonstrating a new MIMO chip set at its
CES booth. The new XSPAN products will be able to deliver
up to 300 megabits per second, with enough range to blanket
a typical home. MIMO uses, among other things, multiple transmitters
and receivers; the Atheros chip set will employ three of each.
Wi-Fi
Video
Broadcom
unveiled what it says is the first Wi-Fi chip set designed
for video phones. Using a mobile or desktop phone designed
with the Broadcom technology, consumers can combine voice
with high-quality streaming video of the two callers.
The chip
set packages together a Broadcom VoIP processor, its 802.11b/g
WLAN chip, and a chip designed for video processing.
The package
supports high-resolution video standards such as H.264 and
H.263, and video rates of up to 30 frames per second. The
WLAN chip set supports the Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) QoS protocol,
which gives priority to voice and video packets.
The new
video chip set is available now in production quantities.
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