Broadcom Announces 40nm WiFi/Bluetooth Combo Chip

Posted 05/31/2011 at 10:12am | by Brad Chacos

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Convenience isn't just for fast food and corner store shopping; laziness – or efficiency, whichever you want to call it – is also one of the driving factors in portable PC design. Us end-users hate to lug around gargantuan laptops, and we hate being tied to electrical outlets while our batteries recharge. We want to be like Ali and float like a butterfly, dammit! Fortunately for us, Broadcom unveiled a new 40nm-thick Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo chip at Computex on Tuesday, the smallest ever developed.

Called the BCM43142 InConcert combo chip (the link keeps timing out, presumably due to heavy traffic), its invention follows the trend of incremental changes: while we've seen WiFi/Bluetooth combo chips before, we've never seen them this small. Not only does the device combine what used to be two chips into one – eliminating one full chip entirely – but the smaller size means less weight, which could lead to less energy consumption. Win-win all around!

The chip will be available for Windows and Android-based notebooks and netbooks.