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WiFi and Bluetooth Together? It's Blue 802.

June 10, 2002
By Dave Molta

When it comes to wireless, coexistence is an ambiguous term, especially where 802.11b WiFi and Bluetooth are concerned.

At last month's NetWorld+Interop convention, WiFi access points were all over the place. At one point, we saw half a dozen other access points in our coverage area, each trying to use the same channel. That's generally a wireless design no-no.

Anatomy of a Blue802 Dual-Mode Device

One card: type 3A mini-PCI card

Two chips: Bluetooth-Silicon Wave SiW1700 WiFi-Intersil Prism3

Two antennas: One for Bluetooth, one for WiFi

One price: $50

Did these access points coexist? Yes, to a certain extent. While the connections between our mobile devices and the access points didn't get dropped, the RF congestion hurt performance.

It is within this context that I formed my impressions of Intersil's N+I announcement of its partnership with Silicon Wave, one of the leading developers of Bluetooth chipsets. The companies are releasing a mini-PCI card reference design that purports to deliver simultaneous Bluetooth and WiFi wireless connectivity, all with optimal throughput, range and responsiveness.

The mini-PCI card reference design should make it more affordable for vendors to deliver hybrid radio solutions. This design lets both Bluetooth and WiFi radios share the same printed circuit board, host interface and antennas. But that's where the integration ends. The system still needs both Bluetooth and WiFi baseband and radio chips. In this case, that means Silicon Wave's Bluetooth-qualified SiW1700 series and Intersil's Prism3 chipset.
--Dave Molta, dmolta@nwc.com

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