Intel Shoves WiFi, WiMAX, DVB-H Onto Single Chip

If you want your mobile devices to get smaller and more powerful, the components that go into them also have get smaller and more efficient. In an ongoing effort for miniaturization, Intel has developed a test chip that can handle no fewer than three wireless radios: WiFi, WiMAX, and DVB-H digital TV.

Sure, that DVB-H stuff doesn't do us much good on this side of the pond, but it does speak to what is possible. By having the handling of all three radios stuffed onto a single chip, precious handset real estate can be handed off for other functions or, alternatively, the handset itself can get smaller. The portable equipment would be able to "access the WiFi network in the home, automatically handover to a WiMAX network when you leave the house and also access digital TV on the move, all through one chip."

Measuring 24 square millimeters overall, the test chip consumes 79mW in receive mode at 52Mbits/s and 72mW in transmit mode.