Agere announces tri-mode chipset

Agere Systems just announced its entry into the multi-mode wireless battle with what they claim to be the most highly integrated and lowest cost chipset.

Although Agere's design, developed jointly with Infineon Technologies , is similar in chip count to that of its competitors Intersil and Atheros, Agere claims a cost advantage due to small die size and integration of many of the required passive components into the devices. Agere expects pricing to be below $15 for the multi-mode chipset.

Agere will demonstrate the dual-band transceiver only at CeBIT 2003 which starts later this week in Hannover, Germany. As the last of the major wireless chip suppliers to announce its plans in the highly-contested, and highly-accelerated draft-11g market, Agere may seem to have missed the design-in cycle for the major consumer WLAN makers. However, Tony Grewe, director of strategic marketing for Agere's Client Systems group, didn't sound concerned when questioned on this point.

He said that Agere's customer base of Enterprise and PC customers (which presently includes Dell), is waiting until the 802.11g standard is ratified in June/July before making their move. Grewe also said that Agere's schedule of silicon sampling in Q2 and the release of module and board-level reference designs in Q3 is just fine with his customer base.

The chipset consists of the WL54040 RF transceiver, WL60040 Multimode MAC, WL64040 Multimode Baseband Processor, and WL54240 SiGe-based, dual-band power amplifier.