Intel says it has designed its first mobile WiMAX baseband chip.
Significantly the chip incorporates multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) techniques, which are being used by the WiMAX industry to increase spectrum efficiency and can also improve signal quality.
But it could be late 2007 before Intel starts to sample WiMAX cards and modules based on the chipset.
This is in line with estimates form market watcher Strategy Analytics which said earlier this year that the adoption of MIMO, which require multiple PAs, transceivers and more complex front end modules, will probably not reach the market before the middle of 2007.
Intel will offer the baseband chip along side its multi-band WiMAX/Wi-Fi radio chip as its WiMAX chipset called Connection 2300.
The Intel WiMAX Connection 2300 chipset design was demonstrated during executive v-p and chief sales and marketing officer Sean Maloney's keynote at the 3G World Congress and Mobility Marketplace in Hong Kong.
Maloney showed an Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology-based laptop with mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e-2005), Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n), and high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) 3G capabilities successfully accessing the Internet at broadband speeds over a mobile WiMAX network.
See also: Electronics Weekly's roundup of content related to WiMax