Intel last week showed a unified WiFi technology supporting solution. The technology will support all current and projected WiFi standards. Krishnamurthy Soumyanath, Intel's communications circuits research lab director, said, "The variable bandwidth of this solution extends capabilities beyond today's 20MHz to 100MHz and is expected to support data rates higher than 100 megabits per second that should allow people to enjoy multiple high-quality video streams concurrently."

The technology is based on a standard CMOS. The all-CMOS direct conversion dual-band radio transceiver is not an insignifivant step toward Intel's implicit goal of providing a single chip which can handle multiple radios in a single device. The CMOS-based technology will keep production costs low. Note that the device in the research paper pesented at the Symposium on VLSI Technology in Kyoto, Japan, shows a 1.4-volt design, which is very low power consumption compared to what is available in the marketplace today.

Intel is planning for the future: At present, communication devices use customized radios to connect them to particular networks. Intel is looking forward to the day in which mobile devices will contain several different radios and a smart antenna system, allowing them to connect to different wireless communication networks. In addition, the radio will be more power efficient, smaller, and cost less.

For more on Intel's WiFi solution:
- see Steve Walters' earthtimes report

PLUS: ArrayComm and Intel are in collaboration on smart antenna technology which would benefit WiMax. Story