Broadcom Crams 802.11n, Bluetooth, and FM Onto a Single Chip 174
Broadcom has managed to cram 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and FM reception/transmission all into a single "combo wireless chip." Designed to be a better wireless implementation for portable devices, the chip seeks to lower chip counts and integration costs. "Broadcom is the second firm — following Atheros in a single-function chip — to announce a single-stream 802.11n product, in which one of 802.11n's advantages is shaved off in favor of a faster baseline performance and lower battery consumption. This move is meant to replace 802.11g in portable devices without draining a battery faster and providing other advantages that make up for what's become a slight cost difference."
The real winner is the retailers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The real winner is the retailers (Score:5, Funny)
So that's why my portable FM radio has two detachable antennas, four ethernet ports that don't seem to do anything, and flashable firmware!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To their credit it wasn't *that* evil. Pipelines and clocks were turned off/down based on manufacturing defects, so it's not as if they placed some arbitrary restriction on your hardware for no good reason, although most would run quite well at boosted specs.
I don't think you have the quite the right mindest (Score:5, Funny)
2) Broadcom 802.11n adapter
3) Broadcom FM receiver/transmitter
4) Broadcom Office Pro:
802.11n with BONUS Bluetooth!! Let's you stay connected and productive WHEREVER you go!11!
5) Broadcom Mobile:
802.11n with BONUS FM radio!! Great for connecting to your friend's Wifi AND playing tunes through your car radio!!11!
6) Broadcom Media Pro:
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR with BONUS FM radio!! Play radio directly to your Bluetooth headset ZOMG!!11!
7) Broadcom Ultimate*:
802.11n with BONUS Bluetooth AND FM radio!!11! For the person who has EVERYTHING!1!11!!
* - requires 4GB of RAM for all features
Re: (Score:2)
You mean 9 versions.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Good luck soldering the pins they removed and coding the drivers they didn't include.
Whats new with that? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have to code the effing drivers anyways.
Re: (Score:2)
If you think it's so easy, I have a challenge for you:
I bought a digital-to-analog converter box (Zenith DTT901) to sit on top of my TV. It includes a chip to decode QAM but that function is disabled due to Congressional law. Several people have tried but not been able to make the QAM function work; can you do it?
As an alternative, I'd be happy just to get S-video out of this box. Again, so far, no one has been able to hack it for this task.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How come none of these chips ever come with an AM receiver? FM is just filled with a bunch of teeny-bopper music, but AM has all the cool talk shows like "Rush Windbaugh" and "The Corn Outlook". ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm right there with you. Who says time-shifting radio programs is for the FM stations only!
Re: (Score:2)
hahahahaha! You still didn't get it right. Maybe you should make a third attempt? ;-)
Is this what you meant? "Smaller frequencies require larger antennae. The smallest possible "largest dimension" of an AM antenna is much to[o] [BIG] to fit in an integrated circuit."
Re: (Score:2)
How come none of these chips ever come with an AM receiver?
Technology and physics - while it's simpler to process AM signals over FM you need a larger unit and antenna.
So while you can do a FM radio on the cheap AM takes a bit more space or effort, so they don't normally bother with the smallest equipment.
Re: (Score:2)
You are only looking at things in terms of engineering costs. The manufacturing costs is where the savings come in.
There are a lot of significant costs with making different boards. For example, you often have to reconfigure the reels with different parts (while this is happening your line is down for a good 15 - 30 minutes.) You also have to worry about stocking more parts. You are buying several different parts instead of one part at a larger quantity so you get less of a price discount. You have to
Broadcom is crap (Score:5, Interesting)
Broadcom wireless chipsets are crap. And I am speaking out of real embedded system design experience here.
Re:Broadcom is crap (Score:5, Informative)
Broadcom wireless chipsets are crap. And I am speaking out of real embedded system design experience here.
Agreed, but from a different perspective. Their support for users running Linux is atrocious. I absolutely hate purchasing a wireless PCI card from a major maker only to find they've changed chips between revisions, and the new chip doesn't have drivers. Of course, the makers are just as guilty, since they don't mark the packaging in any way.
Re:Broadcom is crap (Score:5, Insightful)
A significant linux deployment project was once abandoned by a client of mine because it was impossible to spec a PCI 802.11/g card.
There's no way to identify a product meaningfully, and no way to make the order repeatable. The few vendors who will guarantee linux support for a device, would only do so at an unacceptable price, and it was clear that they had no better way of guaranteeing it than the consumer did.
I know there have been a few cards that have stable chipsets (e.g., certain 3COM models). This doesn't really help the situation.
The wireless-compatability HOWTO is good for a laugh. There are devices listed that were only available for a short time, only in certain countries, and many devices that, given the same part number, get you several completely different cards.
I lost count of the number of times I was referred to that list when shopping for a vendor that would guarantee delivery and repeatable support of a card that would work.
What really stunk about the whole thing was that wireless internet was fast becoming "the killer app" for computing in many sectors, and Linux missed the boat. You can say it's not "linux's fault" but, why in the hell aren't the people who got rich off Linux, also sitting on the boards of some of these companies? Or at least, competing with them so that it's not possible, business-wise, to be openly hostile to Linux developers? Not "supportive", mind you, just not flatly hostile please. It's as if the directors of Broadcom used their leverage in an active campaign to keep Linux off portable computers.
Re: (Score:2)
You can say it's not "linux's fault" but, why in the hell aren't the people who got rich off Linux, also sitting on the boards of some of these companies
Eh? Who's gotten rich off Linux? From what I can see most of these companies are barely hanging on.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Intel Intel Intel.
Intel cards use Intel chips and Intel chips are well-supported.
PS, I'm not pro-Intel in general, but Intel does support Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
Not half as good as Atheros
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Which ones aren't? Ralink has that famous will-randomly-disconnect-wpa-connections bug. Broadcom has the issue with not having open drivers. Which leaves Atheros? Marvell? ...
Re:Broadcom is crap (Score:5, Informative)
Intel wireless chipsets work essentially flawlessly and are opensource
Re: (Score:2)
Bull.
Intel wireless chipsets will work out of the box, yes, but they have issues crashing due to heavy performance and after resuming from sleep/hibernate.
I would not call them flawless.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they don't. One of their older A/B/G chipsets (2915) was atrocious, even under Windows. It could only do WPA/WPA2 at B speeds. You could eventually find a version of their driver that worked for G+WPA, but you'd then expose yourself to all sorts of security problems. I believe that their similar vintage B/G chipset had nearly identical problems with WPA.
Re: (Score:2)
"essentially flawlessly"? Not at all. I had two intel 2100 cards that I had to replace with Aetheros cards because of a well known bug [google.com] in their firmware which Intel just never felt like fixing.
Re: (Score:2)
Get an updated kernel. But I smell a troll... I have yet to find a single wired ethernet card that won't work with Linux. Are there some drivers not built by your distro for the kernel you're using or something?
Re: (Score:2)
Broadcom makes some 1GB and 10GB devices that require closed-source drivers on Linux because they won't give out the specs.
Re: (Score:2)
He specifically said that it was an Intel gigabit, though.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've found I've foregone LiveCD distros and just use a USB key. They're cheap as hell, and reusable, and when you boot to them, you can still write to them, too.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed.
dear Braodcom...
drop the really stupid FM radio thing. How about making a not-crappy chipset?
There is nothing any crappier than broadcom products.
Re: (Score:2)
So little room... (Score:2, Funny)
Broadcom? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Sad but true... NDISwrapper anyone?
Re:Broadcom? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, Broadcom recently released a Linux STA hybrid driver for some of their wireless chipsets. It works very nicely, even if it is a closed-source blob.
I believe this was a result of cooperation between Broadcom, Canonical and Dell.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Broadcom? (Score:5, Informative)
Broadcom is one of the last remaining holdouts that doesn't give out chip specs for their networking devices. Because of this, it's *very* difficult to create decent linux drivers for their chips.
Re:Broadcom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, the manufacturers who play nice with Linux are reaping the benefits of the Linux-running hardware tinkerer's credit cards.
This isn't rocket science... the more places your device can work, the bigger your market. Their spec obfuscation is akin to DRM - it only needs to be broken once for it to become globally worthless, yet if you don't use it in the first place then your loudest users will praise you.
What's there for Broadcom to gain by making it harder to write drivers? Surely it's in their best interest to have Linux support, especially given it's massively widespread use in the embedded devices market.
Re:Broadcom? (Score:5, Informative)
What's there for Broadcom to gain by making it harder to write drivers?
Now, I work for a competitor, so take what I say with a grain (or more) of salt.
.11n is out, and the final version *should* be *mostly* compatible with the draft versions... but there will almost certainly be features/protocol in the finalized version of the specification that differ from these different draft versions coming out at the rate of one every few months. It's like buying Vista (or OSX) before the first patches--except here, you can't patch hardware.
...That said, Broadcom is one of the most patent/trade-secret paranoid companies I know of. Their shotgun approach to patent lawsuits and insistence on playing their cards as close as possible to their chest is famous in the wireless industry. If they haven't released the specs on their networking devices, it's likely because they are terrified of *something* leaking out.
On another note, (and this is a beef I have with more than just Broadcom) how can they claim to have released an 802.11n device when 802.11n does not yet exist? [wikipedia.org] Yes, a draft version of
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Broadcom? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's like buying Vista (or OSX) before the first patches - except here, you don't get the first patches for at least 3 years. And it's better than the alternative.
Narrowcom? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Meanwhile, the manufacturers who play nice with Linux are reaping the benefits of the Linux-running hardware tinkerer's credit cards."
Obviously you didn't hear the news about the credit crunch. Anyway tinkerers have always been a small part of overall sales for a manufacturer. Not because they don't have the money but because most people buy hardware to solve a problem. Not tinker with endlessly into the night.
"This isn't rocket science... the more places your device can work, the bigger your market."
They're devices already WORK. Just because they don't play nice with a small subset of the population doesn't mean they're unsuccessful. They're a chip vendor, not Apple computers selling a finished product to discriminating buyers. The people who work with what they sell work for companies that already can afford NDAs.
Re: (Score:2)
What's there for Broadcom to gain by making it harder to write drivers?
Admitting that they stole code/firmware from another vendor?
Re: (Score:2)
Broadcom is one of the last remaining holdouts
I wonder how many hardware vendors refuse to open up for driver writers under the guise of "people will copy our IP" because they actually copied someones IP to create their hardware. Maybe "Broadcom is one of the last" because they are still using bits of someone elses work.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure they could actually, they could invest in SCO for example.
Re: (Score:2)
That's fine because we'll never buy it.
If Broadcom is too stupid to realize the huge market for Linux-based network appliances, then they deserve to fail.
Freebies? (Score:2)
Does the chip come with a free ticket to Henry Nicholas's lair?
Package Size (Score:4, Interesting)
Neither the article, nor Broadcom's product page [broadcom.com], nor the product brochure pdf [broadcom.com] mention the package size. Any guesses?
I suppose it is probably a smaller footprint than three discrete radio chips put together. One usually gets better die-level integration than board level, and you can usually eliminate redundant functions that way.
Even if it were larger footprint, the fact that you could address and power just one chip rather than three would be a winning advantage on its own.
Re:Package Size (Score:4, Funny)
Why do debates about technology always get reduced to the size of one's package. What difference does the size of one's package make when it comes to pleasing your intended audience? So your car is faster, your phone is smarter, and your house is bigger... my package is smaller so ha!
(perhaps it's our effort to make everything smaller that has caused the decline in masculinity talked about earlier today)
Package Size-Multitasking. (Score:2)
"(perhaps it's our effort to make everything smaller that has caused the decline in masculinity talked about earlier today)"
Hey! You can fit more of them in your pocket.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks Captain Obvious. Usually? Please provide a single concrete example of better board-level integration.
Maybe, but most likely it will only save a couple of chip selects. Also, don't you just love it when your WiFi drops out when your FM radio is damaged?
Re: (Score:2)
Knowing Broadcom, they probably won't even divulge the package size unless you sign an NDA.
The trend nowadays seems to keep all the juicy technical information confidential, and not to even sample the component unless you work for a very important company. This eliminates any hobbyist use of the part. Can't have people experimenting with this stuff. Think of the children!
...laura
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder about the power efficiency and b
Re: (Score:2)
Is 65nm still cutting edge though? Intel's been producing stuff at 45nm for a while now.
From my understanding of the technology, if they need to they can always 'scale up' the PMU section - drawing bigger parts using the finer process isn't difficult. It'd be a bit like displaying 480i images on a 1080p screen.
Meanwhile you get the power savings, higher speeds, smaller size, and increased yields per platter for the smaller process.
Might not be the most 'efficient' way to do it, but reducing the chip count
Re: (Score:2)
As far as System In Package goes, I'm all for that. You can even use multiple dies (say, a 65 nm RF die, a 65 nm digital die, and a 180 nm PMU die) and get around all these pr
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't leakage not so much a function of the process as the size of the traces/components and the subsequent closeness? IE if you're imitating a 180nm die(to give some amperage capacity) with 65nm, wouldn't you get 180nm or better leakage, since the traces would be very accurage compared to a true 180nm process?
Maybe they decided to go for a PMU that ONLY powers the radio stuff. That way you only need a few power traces to the chip, leaving the rest of the stuff for a seperate PMU. Helps keep the board si
SoftRadio? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:SoftRadio? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, neither. It's a wifi radio supporting two different protocols glued to an FM radio.
It's much less cool than a software radio.
FM transmission?!? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, like numerous similar (non-integrated) devices already on the market, it would probably be used most often to link the host device's portable media player function to a car stereo system. These are low-power transmitters, with a range of no more than a few feet, designed for use on otherwise unoccupied channels. There are no significant interference issues to worry about.
FM transmission?!?-Pickup lines. (Score:2)
"These are low-power transmitters, with a range of no more than a few feet, designed for use on otherwise unoccupied channels."
Hey, that's nice. I can do Mr Microphone [youtube.com] into my laptop.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:FM transmission?!? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Ideally, car stereos would just come with a USB connector on the front panel!
USB? I really dislike the trend of using USB for everything, no matter how badly suited.
A simple 3.5mm stereo jack is the most versatile possible solution IMO.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to disagree but a USB jack that works with a line in to USB adapter is the most versatile of the two. 3.5mm stereo jack takes us all the way back to unbalanced analog 2 channel audio at best. These has to be a pile of cheap chips to do the conversion.
My current setup gets me 5.1 digital audio at the bit rate and compression of my choosing, video as well, works with my steering wheel controls, and will allow for my main screen and 2 auxiliary screens to all have there own content (only 2 audio chann
Re: (Score:2)
Seems to me it's perfectly suited, not ill suited.
Re: (Score:2)
My car radio (a Sony) has bluetooth, supporting not only hands-free for my phone (a Sony-Ericsson), but also music streaming. I get in to my car, pick a playlist on my phone and press play and the sound comes from my car speakers. As the phone has a 2GB micro-memory-stick in it, I can bring quite a lot of music around with me.
Much better than a tape emulator, burning cds repeatedly, or using a short-range FM transmitter.
Re: (Score:2)
All VAG group (VW, Audi, Seat, Skoda) have an option to replace the CD autochanger with a USB socket mounted in car for music playback.
Fiat have "Blue and Me" (in partnership with Microsoft!) which features a USB socket that'll play media, and also allow you to download information about your driving and economy, as fitted to the new Fiat 500, and others.
I've seen something that looks like an identical product mentioned in the US, as well.
Re: (Score:2)
My really cheap car stereo has support for "anything" USB, right next to a SD-card reader...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hasn't stopped about half the existing phones on the planet having FM receivers... It's a solved problem.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see how, as they're all on completely different frequency bands. FM is 100-ish mhz, Cells are at the lowest in the 450mhz-band, and up to the 1800mhz band, and bluetooth is up in the 2400mhz band.
Re: (Score:2)
Say what now? I had no problems listening to FM radio on my HTC p3300 (Artemis), while feeding the music over A2DP to my bluetooth headset. We're talking three wildly different frequency bands here (~100mhz, 900-2100mhz and 2.4ghz), so what exactly would be the problem?
Will it work on Linux? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that some mobile phones run on Linux :).
Re: (Score:2)
OP made it sound like he thought this was some sort of USB dongle he could buy to stick in his laptop.
Linux laptops (Score:5, Funny)
So now we can have *3* devices that don't work in our laptops running Linux, instead of potentially only 1 or 2 not work! Awesome :)
Re: (Score:2)
Becuase they would be shutting out 90% of the market and therefore be even bigger morons then Broadcom?
Re:Linux laptops (Score:4, Insightful)
The Linux users have paid for the hardware, same as everyone else. All they're asking for is the minimum specifications so they can write the software to make it work themselves.
Re: (Score:2)
Shameless troll, but I'll bite.
Average Joe buys a kit car, and all the tools he needs to build it, all he is asking for is the fucking manual.
Re: (Score:2)
Except the computer was not sold to you as a "kit computer". It was sold to you as one piece, with the guarantee that it runs OS X, Windows, or whatever the hell. The fact that you want to run Linux on it is your own responsibility, and although it would be totally awesome to get the company's support doing it, it's certainly not owed to you.
It's like buying a GM car, wanting to install a turbocharger, and then asking GM for the complete blueprints to their engine. Sure, it would be cool if GM did so, but t
Re: (Score:2)
The kit car wasn't a metaphor for the computer, it was a metaphor for the chip.
It's more like GM selling you a car with no manual, not making the service manuals available, and only giving Jiffy Lube the information necessary to repair their cars. This would be illegal trust behavior, by the way.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is a pretty good analogy :) ...but I don't currently have any mod points.
Re: (Score:2)
Incorrect analogy. The Linux user isn't changing the product in any way, just using it.
This is more akin to a handicapped person buying a Big Mac from McDonald's and not being able to figure out how to open the cardboard box its in on their own.
I'm betting a McD's employee would help. Broadcom would tell them to enjoy their Big Mac IN the box.
Drivers (Score:2)
Later Announcement, More Details (Score:2)
"We really want to be clear about this groundbreaking news," Broadcom chief scientist Daryl Ellison said. "Not only is this a miracle of modern technology, but it will be frustratingly incompatible with Linux installs everywhere. This continues our absolutely firm commitment - to keep Ubuntu off of the laptop you got
This story is lame (Score:2)
I thought this could be interesting discussion however it's comment after comment of "waa waa waa no linux drivers, broadcom sucks"
Yeah, like complaining on slashdot is going to help.... *rolls eyes*
5 GHz in mobile devices long overdue (Score:2)
What's most exciting here is this chipset coming in a 2.4/5Ghz version. The 2.4 GHz ISM band is a foamy sea of garbage where I live - In my living room my laptop will hear 60+ different 802.11b/g SSID beacons within 15 minutes. I can't get 5 meters of reliable range out of any WAP in 2.4 Ghz, and I've tried several. Since switching to 5GHz-only 802.11n, connectivity is rock steady - but now I have to bridge my assorted 2.4GHz-only kit (Wii, etc.) online.
5GHz support is my make-or-break feature for wifi-enab
I'm not really that excited by this... (Score:2)
I'd actually be half way excited if this entire thing was open source hardware. I could see that getting posted to slashdot. I just don't see why this even should hold my attention after 10 seconds of reading comments on it. It's just about a manufacturers press release of something that's not too exciting any way.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Damnit! Slashvertisements escape Adblock.