Santa Clara, California-based Redpine Signals has unveiled what must surely be the world's lowest-power licensable 802.11b/g platform. It requires only 35.6mW during VoIP calls. The Pine1-LP WLAN reference design is supported by Linux drivers and targets mobile handsets, PDAs, digital cameras, MP3 players, gaming, and printing platforms. Low power is in: A recent study by ABI Research pointed to low power consumption as key to the success of mobile WiFi chipsets.

Redpine says that a complete SDIO/SPI-based WLAN reference design based on the Pine1-LP platform draws less than 377mW during a 54 Mbps FTP download, and only 35.6mW during VoIP calls. Everything is also very small: the platform's BBP and MAC require only 6 sq. mm of PCB space. The Pine1-LP WLAN Platform includes a BBP, MAC, analog front end, 802.11b/g RF transceiver, and power amplifier, as well as SDIO and SPI host interfaces. The SDIO interface supports full 54 Mbps 802.11g data rates. The MAC supports 802.11i security and 802.11e QoS standards. The MAC is based on a programmable packet engine which off-loads all WLAN packet processing and TCP checksum calculations from the host.

For more on Redpine's small contribution to WiFi:
- see Redpine's website

PLUS: Intel's next-generation architecture will focus on performance per watt, leading to lower power demand by the company's products. Report | Story