Wi-Fi chip suppliers racing to offer cheap 802.11n single-chip solutions

jacky002

Cage Chao, Taipei; Rodney Chan, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 22 January 2008]
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: U* M5 q+ _1 z7 n% HWith 802.11n poised to become the mainstream Wi-Fi standard, chips suppliers are racing to lower their costs and offer affordable single-chip solutions at 90nm and below in order to get a head-start in the market, according to industry sources.

In 2007, the industry still had doubts about the acceptance of 802.11n, but now chip suppliers are concerned about how to roll out their solutions quickly and and cheaply to cater to growing demand in the market, the sources commented.
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Single-chip solutions at 90nm and below are promising, with Broadcom, Atheros and Ralink Technology all having told their downstream clients that their single-chip 802.11n solutions will start volume production in the first half of this year, the sources said.

Single-chip solutions will be better in terms of chip size and power reduction compared to previous dual-chip solutions, and prices are expected to decrease to US$5-7, the sources said.

0 b( ]( r) I% hThe previous dual-chip 802.11n solutions saw packaging costs account for 15-20% of the chip's costs, and therefore the single-chip solutions can save as much as US$2 in packaging costs alone, the sources indicated. The size of the chips will also shrink 10-20%, the sources added.

The sources commented that chip suppliers that are slow in rolling out cheap single-chip solutions will find themselves marginalized in the market.

$ P' {7 J3 l- A/ X$ K: H! gSource: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20080121PD213.html

jacky002

對於目前WiFi 11n的市場而言，市場價格的sweet spot應該會是落在US$7~8左右才會是最佳決戰點。
' Z: h2 v, z% jNPU + MAC + Base Band = US$7~8 再加上RF的價格的話，以不超過US$12會是目前最接近retail的市場價格。因此，Broadcom, Atheros and Ralink此三者相較之下，我覺得Ralink有其競爭力存在，但受到品牌大廠的效應之下，Ralink應該還是會被擠壓到中低價市場，不過Dlink與ASUS,Gemtek應該對其所投資的公司有所貢獻，不會讓Ralink業績太差吧!

heavy91

全新解決方案提供更低的功耗、更長的連接距離和更小的占位面積
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觸控及微控制器解決方案的領導廠商愛特梅爾公司(Atmel® Corporation)宣佈與H&D Wireless公司合作，推出用於愛特梅爾32位元AVR® 微控制器的IEEE802.11b+g Wi-Fi解決方案。在這項合作中，H&D Wireless將提供SPB104 Wi-Fi擴充板卡，該板卡能夠經由SD卡插座輕易連接到AVR32 UC3評測工具套件。此一合作案將帶來業界功效最高的Wi-Fi解決方案，整體功耗較市場上所有其他相似解決方案降低五倍。

, d% P. {: C7 B% q' B8 O8 q5 x愛特梅爾AVR32產品市場總監Haakon Skar表示：「許多客戶需要在其32位元MCU應用中嵌入Wi-Fi解決方案，所以愛特梅爾與H&D Wireless攜手合作，在愛特梅爾的 32位元 AVR MCU中實現Wi-Fi功能，以滿足這些需求。客戶如要在AVR32 UC3微控制器中實現Wi-Fi功能，就只需一塊ATEXTWIFI評測板、一套AVR32 EVK1104或 EVK1105評測工具套件，並免費下載一個包括所有Wi-Fi 驅動程式和全部TCP/IP協定堆疊的AVR32軟體框架之1.5版本即可達成。」 AVR32微控制器採用picoPower®技術，是市場上功效最高的微控制器，其所有工作模式和待機模式下的功耗均低於其他競爭產品。

heavy91

愛特梅爾的picoPower技術能夠滿足現今對微控制器的最嚴格要求，而AVR32微控制器則是該技術與公司十多年低功耗技術研發的結晶，能夠達到業界最低的功耗，包括在工作模式下功耗僅為0.48 mW / MHz；而在RTC運行時，耗電量僅1.5 uA；在關斷狀態下，耗電量則低於100nA。

H&D Wireless公司執行長Pär Bergsten表示：「作為無線解決方案的領導廠商，我們非常高興能夠為領先的微控制器廠商提供Wi-Fi解決方案。我們一直致力於開發針對低功耗和小型化需求的一流Wi-Fi解決方案，而新推出的解決方案將可縮短愛特梅爾客戶的產品開發週期。」

) h7 \6 `6 ^! R* U* m1 }( zH&D Wireless模組提供用於802.11b+g頻譜、吞吐能力為1~ 54 Mbps的Wi-Fi功能。該器件的睡眠功耗僅為150 uW，電池壽命達2.4年，接收功率為220 mW，並具有一個與SDIO 和SPI相容的介面。此外，其RF功率輸出比市場平均水準(+17.5 dBm)高出7-8 dB。