Terminology aside, here’s why this latest iteration of Wi-Fi is so cool:

1. It’s fast. The standard can deliver up to 3.6 Gbps around the home, although initial chips offer 1.81.3 Gbps. The current top-of-the-line Wi-Fi chips (802.11n) top out at 600 Mbps.
2. It’s designed for video. The technology uses the 5 gigahertz band as opposed to the 2.4 gigahertz band. The gigahertz band has wider channels to deliver more capacity and competes with fewer other wireless devices, which means the channels can carry more data such as fat high-definition and maybe even 3-D video streams.
3. It’s designed for multiple devices and concurrent streams. Those wider channels also mean a home can support more devices trying to send lots of data, such as sending multiple, concurrent HD video streams around the home, while someone else plays a game or video conferences. So while you might not think you need a gigabit home network without a gigabit pipe leading to your home, if you’re streaming cached content from a hard drive or another device, this helps.
4. It’s more power-efficient. The wider channels allow for more data to travel over the network, which means downloads take less time. At that point, the radio powers down to save on battery life or power. This doesn’t help when streaming, but would be good for keeping devices and hard drives synced.
5. It goes the distance. The physics of transmitting data using airwaves over distances and through certain materials doesn’t change, but because the standard can deliver faster speeds from the router, folks will get proportionately faster speeds as they move away from the router in their homes and offices. It also uses beamforming technology (basically, it compresses the signal like a laser compresses light to make it more powerful) to better pass through buildings, especially through those made of concrete. The end result is a better signal — even if it must pass through a few walls — and a decent end-user experience.

Broadcom expects to start shipping chips in the middle of this year and appearing in a wide variety of products from phones and laptops to set-top-boxes and home routers that will ship in the second half of the year. In November, Quantenna, a chipmaker startup that has raised more than $60 million, announced its own 802.11 ac chips, and in September, I spoke with Craig Barratt, president of Qualcomm Atheros about that chipmaker’s vision for the next generation of Wi-Fi.

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There are the usual suspects: Samsung, ARM Holdings, Qualcomm and Broadcom. But there are some lesser-known names like Largan Precision and Genius Electronic Optical that could be camera lens providers for the new phone. On the software and Internet side of things, Nuance is a likely winner, and so are Wolfram Alpha and Yelp, two key data providers for Siri, a showcase technology in the new device.

Any more thoughts on winners? Let us know.

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“We can’t ignore mobile payments. So much has happened recently and carriers and banks and credit card companies all see that there’s a revenue stream involved, and so they’re working together,” said Ochikubo.

But beyond mobile payments Ochikubo is excited about NFC for making connectivity easier. For example, NFC can be used to authenticate a device more easily than a Bluetooth pairing, so if someone wanted to share a video file from his phone to his television set, all he would have to do is swipe the phone against an NFC reader and ship the file over using a Wi-Fi or other large data rate protocol. Making it easier to connect the phone to other networks securely and easily could enable a host of new applications he thinks.

“We are looking for the Angry Birds, application for connectivity, ” Ochikubo said. “NFC could help. Someone could build something new that helps use connectivity in new ways.”

For years, I’ve sat through presentations about NFC for payments, for talking toys, for sharing personal information such as business cards and many other use cases, some of which are silly and some of which could be awesome. In Ochikubo’s mind those days will come after mobile payment efforts have forced device manufactures to put NFC chips inside smartphones. He notes that carriers are asking vendors to do so, because they see an opportunity to make money as part of a revenue sharing agreement with credit card companies or banks.

Of course, mobile payments have been the next big thing since 2005, or even earlier, but thanks to the widespread adoption and comfort people have with smartphones, Ochikubo believes the time for mobile payments is now. He also believes that one of the bigger holdouts to adoption of mobile technologies — namely getting merchants to upgrade their readers and install new equipment to process payments from a cell phone — might be close to capitulating.

Many of the large credit card companies view mobile payments as a way to help cut down on fraud, and so are actively trying to persuade merchants to swap out their old equipment with new gear that will also read NFC chips. Visa for example has pushed a plan that will lower the costs of complying with security certifications if merchants switch.

Perhaps given that handset makers already have lofty NFC plans, it stands to reason that Broadcom’s bet on 40 nanometer-NFC chips will pay out. Ochikubo says by the first half of 2012 devices containing this new chip will be on the market. From there it’s a matter of getting consumers comfortable with swiping their phone rather than their credit card.

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Icera is a nine-year-old semiconductor company that makes a baseband chip with the ability to listen to many different frequencies and technological standards in one small package. That means it can work on 2G, 3G and 4G networks that use different protocols — such as HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE — all on the same chip. The Icera chip is also programmable, making it far more flexible than one hardwired for a variety of protocols. Integrating radio technologies in future Nvidia SOC (system on a chip) hardware could lead to lower power consumption for mobile devices.

Nvidia isn’t just banking on wireless computing, it’s banking on the kind of fast device design cycles that vendors such as Apple, with its typical annual refresh, have ushered into the market. With a programmable radio, Nvidia can change-up the radio for customer’s demands at a much faster rate. Nvidia also plans to keep Icera’s other customers happy by integrating Icera’s processor with whatever other application processor of the customer’s choosing. This puts Nvidia in the baseband business and if Nvidia wants to pursue it, could result in Icera gaining some real market traction, given its relatively small balance sheet has limited the company to this point.

The deal is an echo of Intel’s decision to buy Infineon’s wireless business for $1.4 billion last year, as well as a vote for the Qualcomm way of doing things, which basically offers device makers an integrated application processor with a radio on the same chip. Other leaders in the application processor market, such as Samsung, also have their own radios, with Samsung investing in developing its own LTE chips a few years ago. Other vendors in the radio world have beefed up their application processor efforts, with firms such as Broadcom and Marvell both pushing hard on the “brains” aspect of their chip businesses. This leaves me wondering where a vendor such as Texas Instruments fits in, given that TI got out of the wireless baseband business to focus on application processors.

Regardless of where individual chip firms shake out here, the deal is a clear indication that connectivity (and cellular connectivity at that) has become a must-have feature in computing today. Nvidia’s confidence in its ability to break into this market also shows how vastly different the mobile ecosystem could be, when compared to the staid Wintel architecture that dominated the PC era.

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A new feature in GPS chips is Glonass support. Glonass is the Russian equivalent of GPS, consisting of a separate set of satellites that are “visible” from around the world. By tuning into both GPS and Glonass satellites at the same time, a GPS chip can get a position fix more quickly and accurately. This approach is most useful in urban canyons, where tall buildings can block line-of-sight reception from satellites.

It’s not entirely clear what’s behind the widescale adoption of Glonass support — although the Russian government now mandates such dual support, which may have forced the issue — but it has the potential to benefit consumers. More accurate location tracking has become enormously important to advertising, services and even public safety on cell phones and other devices. Already, many phones and applications use a combination of GPS and Wi-Fi, such as that offered by Skyhook Wireless, to figure out where a subscriber is at any time.

Still, device makers may not incorporate the Glonass-capable chips into their devices sold outside of Russia, and they may not subscribe to the databases they would need in order to determine where a phone is using the system. Glonass has a storied history going back decades, but the satellite system fell into disrepair. A few years ago, Russia determined it wanted to become a satellite power again and promised to launch worldwide coverage for its Glonass system.

The project has a storied history detailed in this BBC article, which suggests the new Glonass constellation of satellites was a major publicity stunt aimed at fostering the perception that Russia had developed a viable competitor to the U.S.-sponsored GPS system when, in fact, its performance is subpar. But now, almost a year after that article was written, new satellites have launched, and it appears major chip vendors are willing to support Glonass, which means it’s up to device makers and services to launch Russia’s satellites into global prominence.

Image courtesy of NASA.

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The attraction for Broadcom is obvious, as fourth-generation wireless radios won’t be limited to cell phones, but will likely appear in tablets, cameras, industrial sensors and even home appliances as well. It’s a huge potential market and one that Broadcom may be able to break into with this acquisition, even though rivals such as Qualcomm and MediaTek are already big suppliers on the cellular baseband radio side. Broadcom’s 3G business is fairly small, but its ability to integrate multiple radios on a single chip has made it a leader for other types of radios, such as those for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi communications.

As for Beceem, the deal is probably a help, as it filed to go public in April, but has yet to do so. Part of the issue may have been Clearwire’s apparent change of heart with WiMAX; it’s testing LTE, and, thanks to a change in its contract with Intel, it can transition sooner from WiMAX to LTE if it wants to. Beceem, which also counts Intel as an investor, is closely associated with WiMAX, even as it has made efforts to branch into LTE chips. Investors may have been leery of its WiMAX-focused revenue stream and its ability to compete against larger radio companies building LTE baseband chips, making this acquisition a win-win for Beceem’s investors and Broadcom. Perhaps this deal opens the door for other 4G radio startups such as Altair Semiconductor, Wavesat and Sequans to find buyers.

Update: At least one competitor of Beceem’s positions this deal as more of a bail-out for its peer. We received this email comment from Eran Eshed, co-founder and VP of marketing at Altair Semiconductors: “Beceem has no LTE technology today, but has WiMAX revenue which makes the deal easier to position with Broadcom’s shareholders. Beceem’s IPO plans incurred serious challenges in the form of a high valuation in light of a diminishing (WiMAX) market, putting them under pressure to sell.”

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Although NFC has long been seen as the best way to offer secure mobile payments via a cell phone as well as a way to deliver product information much like a bar code does, it’s never managed to achieve widespread adoption (GigaOM Pro, sub req’d). The issue was getting the radios inside enough phones so that companies felt it was worth investing in NFC readers — in other words, a classic chicken-and-egg problem.

But with Nokia committing to the market (it was one of the first handset makers to try out the tech back in 2003) and Broadcom’s buy, there’s a significant opportunity to jump-start demand. Despite its downward slide, Nokia still sells millions of phones worldwide, and Broadcom’s expertise in cramming multiple radios on an integrated chip means its could offer a combo of radios (including NFC) on just one chip, which would make it less expensive to add NFC to a phone. The combo of more phones and NFC functionality for less may be enough to tip the market and ensure NFC becomes as common as Bluetooth.

But I’m not going to get too excited. After all, Nokia scrapped its last round of NFC phone plans as recently as February, and I’ve sat through the NFC hype cycle before. Broadcom may have spent money buying an NFC player, but $47.5 million isn’t so big that Broadcom can’t afford to write it down, if NFC doesn’t take off. Plus, China Mobile with its 500 million users is backing a rival technology called RF SIM, and that kind of market can be hard to ignore.

Intel's single chip cloud computer

Tilera, a startup building chips that contain anywhere from 16 to 100 cores, said today it’s raised $25 million in a third round of funding from investors including Broadcom. Chips made by Tilera, which we named as one of five multicore statups to watch two years ago, are aimed at boosting performance and energy efficiency for networking and cloud computing, which is likely why Broadcom invested. But as Tilera spends more time emphasizing the cloud and big players like Intel do the same, we have to ask: Do cloud computing and web-scale computing need their own chips?

Broadcom likely wants an edge should Tilera’s multiple RISC-based (rather than Intel’s x86) processors set fire to the cloud computing world as equipment companies attempt to develop power-efficient chips that can be adapted to specific workloads. For Broadcom, an investment in Tilera is a direct challenge to Intel’s dominance in the data center computing space, as well as a bet on faster networking chips.

Tilera has advantages in cloud computing because its chip architecture allows for a lot of lower-power processors to talk to one another using an interconnect technology that doesn’t cause bottlenecks. In plain English, Tilera has figured out a way to get a lot of cores to talk without having to pause to listen to one another, which slows things down as you add more cores. A Tilera executive told me last year that if just 10 percent of cloud computing or web-scale customers took a chance on the startup’s architecture, it could succeed.

But while Tilera, which started developing its chips in 2004, may have the lead when it comes to building massively multicore chips with a mesh-interconnect, Intel smells an opportunity as well and as such is building out what it calls a “single-chip cloud computer” with 48 cores for the cloud computing market. There are also systems vendors trying to solve similar problems for those needing energy-efficient web-scale computing, such as SeaMicro and Smooth-Stone.

A key problem in all of these endeavors is figuring out how to get the multiple chips or cores to function together in such a way that performance scales linearly with the addition of each new core rather than tapering off as the communications between the cores or chips becomes overloaded. Intel and Tilera are hoping to do this on the chip itself, while systems vendors are trying to do it with a better box.

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We Can Call It A Cloud, But It’s Still Hardware

Indeed, we’re already seeing gadgets like Fitbit (see disclosure below), DirectLife and Contour USB that help users monitor their health wirelessly. BLE is an alternative to ANT, which is a proprietary wireless sensor network technology. It also competes against  ZigBee and other low-power wireless technologies designed to minimize power consumption. BLE was ratified in December by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) for very low-power applications such as sensor networks, and the technology has drawn support from Broadcom rivals Texas Instruments and CSR.

Backers say the spec is ideal for remote health care and fitness applications as well as home networks and other sectors. Those emerging use-case scenarios will fuel a booming market over the next few years, according to ABI Research, which predicts manufacturers will ship more than 2.5 BLE chipsets in 2014. Part of that growth will be driven by the fact that BLE is an open standard,  which will help alleviate some of the fragmentation that currently exists with proprietary technologies, Broadcom executive Craig Ochikubo told me.

“Today there’s a lot of devices that are working in a sense over proprietary solutions — either wired or wireless — so you end up with a pedometer that will only work with a particular cellphone or exercise device,” said Ochikubo, the company’s VP and GM of wireless personal area networking business. “But what we’ve historically seen happen is when the app exists and moves into an open standard, the opportunity and adoption increase…The consumers are going to want that flexibility, and at the same time the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) are saying that this is…a much better way to scale.”

Bluetooth also offers an encryption scheme for security, Ochikubo said, which will be crucial as BLE moves beyond end-user scenarios (think a consumer monitoring his workout at home with a smartphone app and Bluetooth-connected sensor) to more widespread uses within the medical community. Which is not to say that BLE’s role in connected care is a done deal in light of the chicken-and-the-egg situation hardware vendors find themselves in — phone makers and manufacturers of devices like sensors and monitors must each believe that the other side will buy in to lay a foundation for a BLE ecosystem. But much like Wi-Fi is rolling over proprietary technologies when it comes to local area networks, Bluetooth has a good chance for personal area networks.

Disclosure: FitBit is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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Image courtesy Flickr user jontintinjordan.

For proof, see the Wi-Fi hype that will be on display at this week’s Consumer Electronics Trade Show; or better yet, take a peek at the chart below showing how Wall Street is valuing the companies that develop Wi-Fi chips. I included Intel and Qualcomm, both of which are benefiting from the mobile computing and mobile phone popularity as reference points. Clearly the belief in Wi-Fi goes beyond netbooks and handsets.

And the availability of personal hotspots such as the Mi-Fi and the rise of the Direct Wi-Fi standard make Atheros, Broadcom and Marvell big winners. Also keep an eye on Taiwanese Wi-Fi chip maker Ralink Technology, as well as a host of startups using Wi-Fi around the home, from Quantenna and Celeno to the likes of Sonos and Eye-Fi, which use Wi-Fi to wirelessly transport content.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Adventures in Librarianship.

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Basically Broadcom, a networking chip company, is buying a business whose silicon can handle the switching for a Google-scale server farm — because it’s betting that such deployments will become more common and mainstream. The Dune buy follows Broadcom’s failed Emulex bid, which was also aimed at the next-generation data center.

When it comes to data center networking, it’s no longer just about faster speeds on the pipe, such as the transition from 1 Gigabit Ethernet to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. It’s also about making sure that those faster pipes can benefit the many virtual machines sitting on a server, because just like a house full of teenagers with a single wireline phone, those VMs all want access to the network at once. Products that help share the networking pipe and make sure the servers get access to the network when they need it is a critical step for the virtualized data center of the future.

Dune has raised $53 million in venture funding from investors including Alta Berkeley Venture Partners, Aurum-SBC Ventures, Evergreen Venture Partners, Jerusalem Ventures Partners, Pitango Venture Capital and U.S. Ventures Partners.

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The Irvine, Calif.-based company’s BroadVoice family of voice codecs comprises two variants: BroadVoice32 for wideband speech sampled at 16 kHz, and BroadVoice16 for narrowband telephone-bandwidth speech sampled at 8 kHz. Both will be made available as C source code in an effort to lower the price for broadband operators looking to upgrade the audio quality of subscribers’ calls.

Higher-quality calls are a good thing, of course, and may be a selling point for service providers looking to stand out from the crowd. (Whether they can actually save wireline is far from certain, though.) But quality has often been a less-important feature for consumers, as cell phones (with their mobility) and VoIP (with their lower cost) have demonstrated. Broadcom’s move to open source may result in cheaper HD voice services, but until those prices are nearly indistinguishable from traditional services HD is likely to remain a small market.

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LG's Bluetooth-enabled TV

Broadcom today said its Bluetooth radios are inside a new line of televisions from LG Electronics. Earlier this year, its Bluetooth radios made it into televisions from Sharp, while Samsung also has a Bluetooth-enabled TV. The movement to put Bluetooth — a radio technology popular in cell phones, cars and PCs — into television is gaining momentum, and for Bluetooth radio makers like Broadcom and CSR, it opens up a potentially valuable, new market. DisplaySearch, an analyst firm, expects 205.3 million TVs will sell worldwide in 2009.

Bluetooth on the TV gives consumers the ability to use their cell phones as a remote control, connect wireless headsets to the TV, and stream music from an iPod or other MP3 player to their television or speakers attached to their TV, all without a wire. A representative for the Bluetooth Special Interest Group expects to see more Bluetooth TVs coming to market later this year or early next year.

Bluetooth, which allows for small amounts of data to be transmitted wirelessly, is in 50 percent to 60 percent of cell phones. That could open up opportunities for companies that make both cell phones and televisions, such as LG and Samsung, to link the devices and use mobile phones as remote controls.  Companies like Rovi (formerly Macrovision) and NDS, which develop interactive on-screen guides for televisions, are exploring how to tie mobile phones into the TV-viewing experience.

A mobile phone tied to the TV would allow different users in the house to immediately bring up personalized profiles filled with content, recommendations and perhaps other social features when they watch television. Additionally, as search becomes more essential for wading through the massive video-verse, using a triple-tap keystroke input like that used for sending SMS messages would allow users to search for what they want to watch without requiring a full keyboard.

Consumers with Bluetooth-enabled PC keyboards (or full QWERTY keyboards on mobile phones) might use those to control the TV as well. Steve McIntyre, senior product line manager for wireless personal area networking products at Broadcom, said that Bluetooth radios are in a variety of existing equipment, so adding the radios to TVs allows consumers to add functionality to their television without buying a lot of new gear. Of course, one does have to purchase a new Bluetooth-capable TV.

Research firm In-Stat today released a report revealing that well over half of respondents in a survey owned a mobile phone with Bluetooth technology, with nearly 60 percent of them using it to connect a Bluetooth headset. As televisions get broadband connections, widgets and ever more content, figuring out ways to navigate TV 2.0 (GigaOMPro subscription required), while optimizing the traditional entertainment offered from the TV, makes Bluetooth a compelling technology to add to these 80-plus-year-old devices. It’s a good thing Bluetooth came back from the dead.

Additional reporting by Chris Albrecht.

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But so far wireless networks can’t deliver — at least not consistently throughout an entire house. Broadcom is conducting a trial to use Wi-Fi to send content around the home as part of AT&T’s U-verse product, but can’t disclose any results yet. Wireless would help carriers install home networks faster and would cut costs, but it’s still not something carriers trust to deliver quality video streams. If a customer is paying $100 a month for IPTV service on their 52-inch plasma TV, and the picture pixelates, or otherwise experiences problems, consumers aren’t going to be as accepting as when such things happen on their PCs. So far carriers are keeping to wires even if it makes installation of IPTV setups more of a pain.

Currently Broadcom is trying to build a Wi-Fi chip that would sit inside a residential gateway and deliver 20 Mbps streams inside a home, but that still wouldn’t be enough. In the meantime, there are other companies trying to offer alternate ways to boost wireless signals inside the home for a consistent network to deliver videos. Quantenna is using a series of repeaters to boost a home’s Wi-Fi signal throughout the home, while Amimon is trying to create a home wireless video network using the 5GHz spectrum and its own standard. And even if carriers don’t like wireless home networks, it may not be up to them if the PC wins out as the source of entertainment for consumers.

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Qualcomm's mirasol MEMS

Qualcomm today announced the opening of a factory to make its mirasol displays, and a Wi-Fi chip designed for home networking — both efforts to keep the company a top chipmaker even as carriers migrate from the CDMA technology that provides so much of its profits. CDMA royalties aren’t going to disappear anytime soon, but Qualcomm needs to find new markets for its chips that don’t ride the 3G wireless gravy train. Hence, its push into mobile television with MediaFLO, the creation of its Gobi platform, displays and now, home networking.

Qualcomm developed a chip technology known as a micro-electro-mechanical system, or MEMS, that is used to make its low-power mirasol displays, and today said it has opened its first production factory in partnership with Foxlink, a Taiwanese communications device maker, to make the color displays. The displays made at the factory will be aimed at mobile devices.

It is also moving into the home with a new wireless chip for home networking that it says can deliver data rates of 600 Mbps over an 802.11n Wi-Fi connection. Qualcomm’s N-Stream Wireless LAN WCN1320 chip uses  4×4 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology and works in both the 5GHz or 2.4GHz spectrum bands. It joins a portfolio of Wi-Fi chips that Qualcomm makes for cell phones and other mobile devices.

With both markets, Qualcomm will face some serious risks. It needs to prove it can make its mirasol displays in large quantities, and at prices that are comparable to LCD, the dominant display technology. Mirasol will also compete with organic light-emitting displays (OLEDS) and possibly e-ink technology used in portable readers. In the home, Qualcomm will be intruding on territory controlled by Broadcom, Atheros and Marvell. Because of its close ties to carriers, it may win business providing Wi-Fi chips inside residential gateways  and modems, but it will also need to get consumer device companies onboard as well as router makers.

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