Broadcom's New Combo Chip Integrates 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 + HS and FM to Bring New Multimedia Applications to Smartphones, Tablets and Other Mobile Devices

By implementing emerging standards in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, the BCM4330 will support new and exciting applications. For example, Broadcom's BCM4330 is the industry's first combo chip solution certified with the Bluetooth 4.0 standard that integrates Bluetooth low energy (BLE). BLE enables an ultra-low power implementation of Bluetooth technology, making the BCM4330 the ideal solution for systems that require very long battery life such as wireless sensors, medical and fitness monitoring devices. The BCM4330 also supports Wi-Fi Direct™ and Bluetooth High Speed which enable mobile devices to communicate directly with each other without having to connect first to an access point and be part of a traditional network, thus creating many new wireless device-to-device applications and usage models.

Broadcom continues to support every major operating system (OS) platform, from Microsoft Windows and Windows Phone to Google Chrome, Android and beyond, not only with the BCM4330, but with all Bluetooth, WLAN and GPS chipsets.

The BCM4330 is in production and will be demonstrated this week at the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Highlights/Key Facts:

* The Broadcom BCM4330 is a third generation combo chip device that provides the highest level of integration for a mobile or handheld wireless system, and includes IEEE 802.11 a/b/g and single-stream 802.11n (media access controller (MAC)/baseband/radio), Bluetooth 4.0 + HS and FM radio receive and transmit functionality. It also features an integrated Power Management Unit (PMU), Power Amplifiers (PAs), and a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) to address the needs of mobile devices that require minimal power consumption and compact size.
o The BCM4330 provides a small form-factor solution with minimal external components to keep the cost down for mass volumes and allow for flexibility in size, form-factor and functionality
o The BCM4330's extreme integration reduces power consumption and makes the overall solution size over 40 percent smaller than its predecessor
* Dual-band capabilities allow Wi-Fi users to leverage the less crowded 5 GHz spectrum for media applications that require faster guaranteed bandwidth. To eliminate the cost and size barriers of adding dual-band functionality to mobile devices, the BCM4330 integrates 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz power amplifiers, which can reduce bill-of-material (BOM) costs by up to 75 cents while providing the same or better performance than solutions using external power amplifiers.
* Bluetooth 4.0, which contains BLE wireless technology, consumes only a fraction of the power when compared to classic Bluetooth radios. BLE enables many wireless sensor devices powered by small, coin-cell batteries to operate for many years without having to replace the battery. With the integration of BLE onto Broadcom combo chips, smartphones and tablets powered by the BCM4330 will be able to more effectively collect data from a variety of sensors such as those found in pedometers and glucose monitors that require very low power consumption.
o Broadcom continues to support its widely deployed Bluetooth stack and software for Android offering a carrier hardened stack, rich with many Bluetooth profiles, which now includes BLE support for next generation sensor applications
* Broadcom's support for Wi-Fi Direct enables devices to communicate directly with one another without having to interact with an access point. This not only makes communication between devices simpler and faster, but means devices can connect anywhere and anytime. With the BCM4330 combo chip, portable devices are no longer limited to communications within one single network and can move easily between networks, establishing one-to-one connections on an as needed basis.
* Bluetooth High Speed enables Bluetooth applications to be used over the Wi-Fi connection and at Wi-Fi speeds. The user can connect ad hoc devices using normal Bluetooth pairing and then the BCM4330 combo chip can decide to run over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi depending on bandwidth availability.
* Broadcom offers support for Android and Windows Phone in its combo chip products. Broadcom's OneDriver™ software stack is among the most mature in the industry and includes source code that is part of the generic Android and Windows Phone distribution. OneDriver software, which is bundled with BCM4330 and other Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo products, reliably brings key emerging features to Android and Windows based phones. These advanced features include:
o Software and hardware support for WAPI -- the Chinese security protocol that enables OEMs to address the growing market for Internet connected handsets in China
o In addition, both Android and Windows Phone distributions feature support for 'Soft Access Point' - which allows the Wi-Fi component in a client device (such as a notebook computer or smartphone) to function as an access point enabling the sharing of wireless broadband with other devices
* The BCM4330 implements the industry's most advanced and proven radio coexistence algorithms and hardware mechanisms to allow an extremely collaborative WLAN and Bluetooth coexistence scheme internally, along with external coexistence scheme support for additional wireless technologies such as LTE and WiMax. As a result, enhanced overall quality for simultaneous voice, video and data transmission is achieved on a handheld system.
* Additional features of the BCM4330 combo chip solution includes:
o An integrated ARM® Cortex™-M3 processor and on-chip memory for complete WLAN subsystem functionality that minimizes the need to wake-up the application processor for standard WLAN functions. This allows for further minimization of power consumption, while maintaining the ability to perform field upgrades with future features
o Broadcom's SmartAudio® technology offers Wide Band Speech (WBS), Packet Loss Concealment (PLC) and Bit Error Correction (BEC) to dramatically improve Bluetooth voice and audio quality
* The BCM4330 is in production with volume shipments to phone manufactures this quarter.
* Tier one handset manufactures are announcing products this week at the 2011 Mobile World Congress that include the BCM4330 with product shipments expected to occur in the upcoming months.