BWW: WiMAX chip launches heat recovering sector

LAS VEGAS--With rampant product launches and many exhibitors talking of new funding on the way, the eighth annual Broadband Wireless World conference in Las Vegas this week has the same look and feel it might have had five or six years ago.

The events center at Caesars Palace was buzzing, not with chatter about the impending boxing match to take place Friday night in the casino-hotel's courtyard, but about dueling WiMAX chip launches from Intel and Fujitsu Microelectronics America. After Intel's Rosedale launch earlier in the week and Wavesat's launch of its Evolutive WiMAX chip strategy, Fujitsu unveiled its own entrant in the WiMAX semiconductor war--the MD87M3400 system-on-a-chip (SOC).

Embedded with both physical and media access control layer functions, the SOC is designed for both base stations and subscriber products. The company joined Intel, Wavesat and Sequans as companied that have officially launched their 802.16-2004 WiMAX chips.

George Wu, director of marketing for the Technology Solutions Group at Fujitsu, said his company's points of differentiation will come through a "highly integrated" SOC architecture that includes dual RISC processors so that lesser MAC functions can be off-loaded from the main processor, as well as an external processor interface that allows systems vendors to cutomize the chip for different kinds of equipment.

Aperto Networks, which earlier in the week said it is using Intel's chip in its subscriber equipment, announced at BWW that it also will use Fujitsu's SOC for its network gear as well as other subscriber units. WiLAN, which helped Fujitsu develop its SOC, also will be using the chip.

The next company to join the vibrant WiMAX chip race likely will be TeleCIS Wireless, which plans to launch its chip in the coming months, according to Dave Sumi, vice president of marketing at TeleCIS. From some perspectives, the market may be getting crowded, but Sumi said, "There are five or six companies doing this. In Wi-Fi, there were once about 40, and that eventually got down to about three."