Intel Corp. has developed a prototype of an all-CMOS direct conversion dual-band radio transceiver capable of supporting every current Wi-Fi standard (802.11a, b and g), as well as the projected requirements of 802.11n.

The system-in-a-package technology is a significant step toward enabling integrated CMOS radios that could provide improved wireless capabilities in future Intel platforms at a low cost.

The announcement, presented as part of a technical paper delivered at the Symposium on VLSI Technology in Kyoto, Japan, outlines the building blocks Intel created to implement the fully flexible, multimode radio in a standard CMOS process. A future extension to the Wi-Fi standard, 802.11n will more than double the wireless transfer speed compared to today's implementation.

"This system-in-a-package design uses more low-voltage circuitry than we've ever used in the past, which means we can integrate it and make it lower cost while operating at lower voltages and providing longer battery life," noted Krishnamurthy Soumyanath, director of Intel's Communications Circuits Research Lab. "The variable bandwidth of this solution extends capabilities beyond today's 20 MHz to 100 MHz, and is expected to support data rates higher than 100 Mbps that should allow people to enjoy multiple high-quality video streams concurrently."

Today, each device uses a customized radio to connect to a particular network—for example, a wireless local area network or WLAN based on Wi-Fi technology. A different device might use a radio developed for a wireless wide area network (WWAN). In the next few years, Intel expects mobile devices will contain several different radios so they can use many different wireless communication networks. Intel's research points toward a time in the future when one device will use "smart" antenna systems and a reconfigurable CMOS radio on a single device, making the radio more power efficient, smaller and lower cost. The goal being pursued is the ability to connect to any network, anytime, anywhere on any device.

A key achievement of this research is keeping the underlying manufacturing technology tied to CMOS—the technology Intel uses to make all its microprocessors and other computer chips. By doing so, it keeps manufacturing costs low and the potential to produce this capability in high volume. The device in the research paper features a 1.4-V design (very low power consumption compared to what is available in the marketplace today).

802.11 standards for wireless technology include:

• 802.11 refers to a family of specifications developed by the IEEE for wireless LAN technology. 802.11 specifies an over-the-air interface between a wireless client and a base station or between two wireless clients.
• 802.11a is an extension to the 802.11 standard that applies to wireless LANs and provides up to 54 Mbps in the 5-GHz band.
• 802.11b is an extension to the 802.11 standard that applies to wireless LANs and provides 11 Mbps transmission (with a fallback to 5.5, 2 and 1 Mbps) in the 2.4-GHz band.
• 802.11g is an extension to the 802.11 standard that applies to wireless LANs and provides 54 Mbps in the 2.4-GHz band.
• 802.11n is an extension to the 802.11 standard that in the future will increase the speed to more than 100 Mbps. As projected, 802.11n will also offer a better operating distance than current networks.

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