Altair Ships Smallest, Least Power Consuming WiMAX Chips - The Online Reporter
Altair Ships Smallest, Least Power Consuming WiMAX Chips
The Online Reporter
March 14, 2008
- Handheld WiMAX Devices Will Need Tiny Chips with Low Power Consumption
All those tiny iPod-sized WiMAX devices - from cameras to portable gaming consoles - are going to need small WiMAX chips that use very little power.
Fabless chipmaker Altair Semiconductor is ready to ship its ALT2150 mobile WiMAX baseband processor to handheld device and module manufacturers to fill those requirements.
Altair says the ALT2150 is the world's smallest and most power-efficient mobile WiMAX processor and meets all the WiMAX Forum specifications.
"The ALT2150 is not just another WiMAX baseband processor - it represents a true disruption in terms of power consumption, size and cost," said Altair's co-founder and VP of marketing and business development Eran Eshed. He said the chip outperforms other state-of-the-art cellular chipsets in power consumption. That, he said, "is the key to unlocking the real mass market potential of mobile WiMAX handheld devices."
Altair's product strategy in the WiMAX chip market is to focus exclusively on developing chips for battery-operated, handheld devices that impose very strict power consumption and size requirements on semiconductors.
The ALT2150 is the first in a family of chipsets that Altair is developing to provide "excellent performance but consume only a fraction of the power of any mobile WiMAX chipset available today," the company said.
"What we're seeing in the ALT2150 is truly revolutionary in terms of size,power consumption and cost," said Haig Sarkissian, principal consultant at WiMAX 20/20, an independent market research and consulting company focused solely on the emerging broadband wireless market. He said after matching it to comparable offerings, his company believes Altair is strategically positioned to bring a highly competitive mobile WiMAX processor solution to the marketplace.
The chip has built in a patent pending solution for the coexistence of WiMAX with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
When asked what kinds of devices the company expects the Altair chips to be used in, Eshed said, "The key here are the services - they will dictate which devices will feature WiMAX connectivity.
Some examples in which we see activity include:
- Cameras (video and digital still)
- MP3/4 players
- Internet tablets
- Portable game consoles like the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP)
- Mobile handsets/smartphones
Asked how Altair could compete with the 200-pound chip gorilla Intel, he said, "We are not in direct competition with Intel as their focus is on laptop solutions and combos of WiMAX with Wi-Fi. Their solutions are far from being power or footprint optimized."
To our question on whether Altair would also support Wi-Fi as Intel has said it would, Eshed responded:
"We don't think the integration of Wi-Fi/WiMAX in handhelds makes a lot of sense. It is required in laptops where the attach rates of Wi-Fi are almost 100%, and therefore by definition WiMAX has to live side by side with Wi-Fi. In handhelds the attach rates of Wi-Fi are less than 10% so burdening the rest of the 90% for this overlap is the wrong integration in our opinion."
We didn't get to ask but since all iPhones and iPod touches now have Wi-Fi, does that mean there'll come a time when they and/or their competitors will only have WiMAX?
There seems now to be some ground where Wi-Fi and WiMAX will be competing:
- Is WiMAX better for public access municipal wireless networks or will the "n" version of Wi-Fi do the trick or perhaps Ruckus Wireless' Wi-Fi technology?
- Does AT&T's move to make free Wi-Fi access to its 14 million broadband subscribers create so much momentum that it will carry the day for Wi-Fi?
- Will WiMAX' appeal as broadband in residences where wired broadband is not available override Wi-Fi networks in the home? Why have a home Wi-Fi network when with WiMAX, the PC, laptop or other WiMAX-capable device can be used anywhere in the home?
Altair sees WiMAX carrying the day especially when it comes to small handheld devices.