Intel fires up first mobile WiMAX baseband chipset design

Development marks next step toward integrated WiMAX/Wi-Fi.

Intel today unveiled its first mobile WiMAX baseband chipset design.

Incorporating technology from the company’s previously announced single-chip, multi-band WiMAX/Wi-Fi radio, the Intel WiMAX Connection 2300, was demonstrated during executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer Sean Maloney’s keynote at the 3G World Congress and Mobility Marketplace in Hong Kong.

The architecture sees Intel, for the first time, incorporating multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) functionality into the baseband chip to enhance the signal quality and throughput of wireless bandwidth. The baseband chip also employs the same software for Intel’s WiMAX and Wi-Fi technologies to provide unified connectivity management.

Maloney showed off a laptop equipped with the chipset that supports mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e-2005), Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n), and high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) 3G. The device was demonstrated accessing the internet at broadband speeds over a mobile WiMAX network.

He claimed that the demo illustrated that WiMAX networks can handle content-rich applications without interference from other wireless technologies residing on the same system.

Maloney said: “The Intel WiMAX Connection 2300 will help speed the deployment of mobile WiMAX, and accelerate the availability of a new wave of "personal broadband” laptops and mobile devices that deliver the real Internet."