IC firms roll combo chips at Mobile Congress
Broadcom (Irvine, Calif.) announced BCM4330, the firm’s newest wireless combo chip for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. The BCM4330 integrates Broadcom’s 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and FM radio technologies on a single silicon die providing cost, size, power and performance advantages over discrete semiconductor implementations, Broadcom said.
According to Broadcom, BCM4330 is the industry’s first combo chip solution certified with the Bluetooth 4.0 standard that integrates Bluetooth low energy, an ultra-low power implementation of Bluetooth technology.
The BCM4330 is in production and will be demonstrated this week at Mobile World Congress, Broadcom said.
Atheros (Santa Clara, Calif.) introduced the XSPAN AR9462, described by the company as the first combo solution that integrates high-performance 2-stream, dual-band 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0 technologies onto a single silicon die.
According to Atheros, the AR9462 offers robust wireless bandwidth in both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. The device uses Atheros’ signal-sustain technology to boost signals across the entire Wi-Fi link, enabling consumers to maintain reliable Internet connections on the 2.4 GHz band, while using wider (40 MHz) transmission channels in the 5 GHz band to create, consume and share digital media content, according to the firm.
The AR9462 also offers DirectConnect technology, Atheros’ Wi-Fi Direct certified feature that enables instant peer-to-peer connections without a router or broadband access, Atheros said.
Atheros said it plans to sample the AR9462 to customers in the next two months. The company said it will offer single- and dual-band reference designs to provide manufacturers with additional flexibility for their next-generation designs.
Marvell (Santa Clara) announced a world phone platform based on the Marvell PXA978 communications processor with Marvell HSPA modem. Marvell said its PXA978 is the industry’s first single-chip solution to feature 3G Universal Mobile Telecommunications System and China’s TD-SCDMA Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access standard with High-Speed Packet Access support. The device is intended to enable mobile developers to design 3G cellular devices and tablets that can be used and supported globally, Marvell said.
The Marvell platform will also feature the industry’s first Mobile MIMO, Avastar 88W8797, an 802.11n 2×2 dual-band Wi-Fi SoC designed to support high data rates for next-generation mobile devices, according to Marvell.
Also Monday, Marvell unveiled an open software platform for mobile devices. The platform, Kinoma Play, was acquired by Marvell through its recent acquisition of mobile media software Kinoma Inc., Marvell said.
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