Intel Demos Software Defined WiFi/WiMAX/DVB-H Chip

Doc Ruby writes "Electronics Weekly is reporting that Intel has developed a new prototype chip for software defined radio. The new chip will be able to handle WiFi, WiMAX and DVB-H digital TV all on the same chip. 'This kind of chip would allow equipment to access the WiFi network in the home, automatically handover to a WiMAX network when you leave the house and also access digital TV on the move, all through one chip.' It's also a proof that the entire class of SW radios that could possibly converge CDMA, GSM and various other radio networks for opportunistic handoffs by a single device, a 'universal radio' that could use content formerly locked into a single radio type."

Re:Closed drivers

[JK_the_Slacker]

No worries, mate. I'm a ham radio op... and a programmer... I'll have an open source control program along shortly.

Alternatively, I could write support into GNU Radio. [gnu.org]

Uh, not quite

[Ancient_Hacker]

Uh, not quite.

There are still a few stages in the receiving chain that have to be analog.

In particular the first few stages of input filtering, RF amplification, and mixing all HAVE to be analog, and delicate, tricky analog at that.

Someday we may have 5Gig sample/second 32-bit floating-point A/D converters with microvolt sensitivity, but until then radio receivers can't be quite as flexible as the term "software defined radio" implies.

Potential in many markets for this integration

[teebob21]

An integrated 3-protocol chip, if produced for a reasonable price, could be just the thing to spark a new age of computing. Let's compare most "movie-future" computers to this: Easy wireless access almost anywhere you go, plus reception of live digital TV broadcasts. Sounds like the movies to me!! Granted -- the chip doesn't appear to be a ATSC decoder (I could be wrong) so current US broadcasters won't have their digital signals accessible by this chip. Additionally, wireless access in most municipalities is not existent, and most of those implementations just plain suck. At any rate, we need the hardware base to exist before the demand for "quality" municipal WiFi will grow.

Continue this development, and you may reach the point of having essentially a HTPC on a card, with TV tuning and wireless internet built in. With the new FCC mandates to open up the cable box market, Intel may open the door for competition that isn't a TiVO. And...even if no new companies step up, TiVO would probably be interested in providing Internet and TV via the same box -- something most cable boxes cannot do.

I also LONG for the day where WiFi chips/cards begin coming standard on motherboards; I prefer a desktop to a laptop any day. That, and I am tired of running CAT5 throughout my house to my multiple boxes.

Re:Cool

[LWATCDR]

Short Answer No.
To get FCC approval these devices will have to be not "modifiable" by the end user.

Re:Closed drivers

[MBCook]

I should point out that I'm almost positive that there is no rule that says this. The companies take that position then try to back it up that way ("well the FCC might pull the device's license if..."). There are valid reasons for this (it would be easy to cause interference for only the purpose of being annoying) and good reasons against (my device means my responsibility, it's an unlicensed part of the spectrum).

However that only applies to transmitting. The is no valid reason why there would be a problem letting you configure the thing however you wanted to receive things. There are a few little bands that you aren't supposed to listen to, but if the analog part was designed correctly that would be impossible (I don't know if any of those bands are that high up). It would be simple to make it so that it's impossible (without modification of the physical circuits) to get RF though the amplifier unless it is within a little frequency set that the device is allowed in.

It IS illegal to make a device in such a way that it can be easily modified to transmit on other frequencies (seen with CBs) and I think it may be illegal for receiving too (like to listen into cell frequencies). Note that there is no solid definition on this as far as I know. You can't make it so it's "cut jumper B3 and you're set", but you don't have to go all the way to "install 12 wires, a chip, flash the firmware, hold the radio upside-down and...". Someone who is more familiar with this rules will surely point out the specifics.

Mid-tex cellular uses software defined radios

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know a lot about them, but I've read that Mid-Tex Cellular uses software defined radios from Vanu, Inc. From what I've read they updated from TDMA (using conventional hardware) to GSM (using quite unconventional hardware) in early 2005. Instead of installing GSM hardware at each site, they installed this software defined radio hardware. So, now they've decided to add in CDMA also for roamers; instead of having to add expensive and specialized CDMA base station hardware to each site, they just add software to the control computers (and, possibly add an extra computer to a site if it needs more processing power.)

          This sounds like something Alltel could use, given in the west they run AMPS, TDMA, GSM, CDMA, and EVDO. (Western Wireless, which Alltel bought, provides the only coverage in a lot of the rural desert, and so they found the more standards they supported, the more roaming money they made... since it's desert, they didn't have problems with network congestion or whatever, so they just decided to run all standards 8-) They run CDMA + EVDO for themselves, and the rest for roamers.)

Re:Sounds great but...

[MBCook]

You don't. You put 3 antennas in the device and switch between them. This would be problematic for other things, but in high frequencies the antennas aren't that big. If all three things use nearby pieces of spectrum (say different parts of 2.4 GHz) then you can tune the antenna for the center and put up with the losses for frequencies near the edges.

Not Really Software-Defined

[LowSNR]

FTFA:

This provides all the digital signal processing and forward error correction for these three protocols and the area is still comparable to three fixed function Asics

This isn't really software-defined radio. Software-defined implies that the protocol level processing (i.e. DSP, FEC, etc.) are performed in software or firmware rather than in silicon (and hence changeable on the fly). While it is a pretty neat chip that has the potential to ease the convergence of these wireless standards, software radio it's not.

To help clarify your statement....

[Khyber]

I refer everyone else to section B of FCC regulations. If you can't Google it, then you don't belong here. :) In short, a device may not cause interference, but it must accept any interference it may receive due to natural or other issues that interfere with/tie into the operation of an EM-based device.

To put it short, you can receive and listen in to anything you choose to, but to transmit may be a different story. End of simple statement.

Re:Uh, not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the lack of an RF front end - this digital chip itself is really no big deal. All three of these standards use essentially the same modulation scheme (OFDM), and require similar hardware in the modem (which is what this chip is). All three standards us modems based on FFTs and IFFTs engines, have similar channel equalization schemes, etc. I don't see how this demonstrates anything new or interesting.

Re:the craziness does not have to continue!

[jamesh]

Instead of making 100s of different NICs that all behaved differently and required their own software drivers, NIC makers all constructed their hardware so that it would behave like a NE2000 ethernet card.

That's almost how it happened. Novell used National Semiconductors sample design for how a bare minimum card based on it's 8390 ethernet controller could be constructed. Then everyone else copied it too. I don't think it was done for compatibility reasons, it just saved you doing design work. It was also pretty sucky in terms of throughput and CPU usage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NE2000 [wikipedia.org]