CSR to expand from Bluetooth into Wi-Fi

Tri-mode chipset due next year

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

Posted in Mobile, 11th December 2003 15:31 GMT

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Cambridge Silicon Radio, one of the pioneers of Bluetooth chip design and which once supported HiperLAN, the European alternative to 802.11a, plans to move into the Wi-Fi market.

The company is telling its customers that it will ship an 802.11a/b/g chipset next year, according to a report at Comms Design.

CSR is bullish that it can offer something the existing players and the flood of new entrants into the Wi-Fi chip market - most of them from Taiwan - can't.

"We will plan to leapfrog competitors in any new market we enter, and in this case that could mean improvements in size, power or cost," said J. Eric Janson, CSR's VP of marketing.

CSR will still have its work cut out. The Wi-Fi market has become increasingly competitive, with established firms either getting out altogether, as Intersil did, or increasingly relying on proprietary extensions to the 802.11 standards to differentiate their offerings.

The CSR part will not feature Bluetooth - that doesn't make sense, said Janson. ®

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