Intel Puts WiFi Back Into Next Gen Chipsets

bizpile writes "After announcing that they were removing WiFi from their next generation of chips, Intel has decided to put it back. The next generation of chips are also expected to include the 1066MHz frontside bus Intel introduced this week and support 667MHz DDR 2 SDRAM."

Wifi Access Point

[Denis Lemire]

If I recall correctly, it was pointed out in the last article along this line that Intel was NOT removing WiFi from their laptop chipsets. The new chipset under developement were to have a built in access point. This is what was being removed. There was NEVER any intention to remove WiFi client support.

Nothing changed

[Anonymous Coward]

no, nothing changed. The original interpretation of Wi-Fi having been "dropped" was a misinterpretation.

The original decision was to remove *soft AP functionality* from the chipset. Not to drop Wi-Fi entirely. Go back and read what was said back then.

Intel is putting the Why back into WiFi

[3770]

Well,

I don't have anything interesting to say. I just thought that that was a witty subject for someone that might have something clever to say.

More fodder for us wardrivers!

[drewzhrodague]

Hooray! More fodder for us wardrivers! More units made = more units sold = more units wardriven! Game ON!

But what about WiMAX?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I hear Intel is integrating WiMAX into a chip to go on the laptop motherboard - and that this chip/core/whatever is also capable of WiFi.

WiFi(b, g) could be viewed as a slightly degraded version of the OFDM/OFDMA PHYs of WiMAX, operating just adjacent to one of WiMAX's several bands, with a somewhat different MAC. So it's easy to do with the same hardware. The DSP has more than enough capacity and runs much the same algorithms, the radio can tune the band, and the MAC logic is related but simpler, and well-debugged. 802.11a isn't that much different either, and also in range of the radio. So once you have working designs for each it's pretty trivial to do both WiMAX and WiFI in the same chip (at least if you're not trying to do them at the same time).

Perhaps this release thrash is related to that.

What I want to know is when WiMAX becomes a standard part of the laptop support chip line.

Re:Intelligent

[sglane81]

didn't it become a problem as soon as 802.11g hit the shelves?

B and G work together as it should (mostly). They're both on 2.4 Ghz. 802.11A is on 5.4 Mhz. G is backwards compatible with B, so either B or G will work on B or G. From what I've seen, if you have a heterogeneous B & G network, you will experience B speeds, whereas if you had a homogenous G network, you can expect the full 54. You probably meant 802.11A in your statement.

I'd rather my CPU not lock me into its integrate features when they might become obsolete.

Which is why you have expansion slots like PCI, AGP, and PCI Express (ISA, VLB). Your motherboard probably comes with integrated video, but you probably have upgraded it to an AGP card (or PCI Express). The same is true with the WiFi integration. They're not forcing you to use their WiFi (which has little/no linux drivers). You can always add an expansion card.