EDN's 18th Annual Innovation Awards Finalists

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Category: Network and Communication ICs
WINNER: BCM4325 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth IC (Broadcom)

Modern mobile handsets and other portable appliances must integrate a growing number of radios into smaller and smaller packages. A single chip that supports multiple RF links is a requisite to add support for schemes such as Wi-Fi into handsets. Broadcom is targeting the handset and consumer-appliance market with the BCM4325, which it announced in February 2007. The IC combines support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and FM radio onto a single silicon die. The company claims that the chip both delivers better performance than discrete wireless approaches and significantly reduces the system’s size, power consumption, and cost.

In addition to solving Bluetooth/Wi-Fi coexistence issues, the BCM4325 is notable in that it integrates an 802.11a/g power amplifier. The power amp is crucial to maximizing range. Most 802.11 systems use discrete power amplifiers made with expensive semiconductor process technologies, such as GaAs (gallium arsenide) or SiGe (silicon germanium), to meet the performance requirements. Broadcom claims to be the first company to achieve good power-amp performance using cost-effective CMOS technology. The 65-nm CMOS implementation surpasses IEEE specifications for spectral mask and EVM (error-vector magnitude) at 54-Mbps data rates. The design works in both the 2.4- and the 5-GHz bands. The BCM4325 power amplifier also uses highly adaptive and dynamic techniques to accommodate variance across semiconductor-process corners, changing VSWR (voltage-standing-wave-ratio) conditions, temperature, and supply voltage.