News
Issue #2002 - 09 (March 2002)
(Updated Mar. 6, 2002)

TECHNOLOGY

Intersil & Cisco Partner to Bring Higher WLAN Speeds with 802.11g in 2.4 GHz Band

During the week of February 18th, IEEE 802.11g was given the "go" flag on the WLAN racetrack, as networking giant Cisco announced its intention to partner with Intersil to provide an IEEE 802.11g client reference design. Intersil, a market leader in the 802.11b chip space, had been promoting its 802.11g OFDM solution since early 2001. But, delays in the standardization process for 802.11g, combined with the anticipated early release of 802.11a products in 4Q01, had cast a shadow of doubt on whether 802.11g end-products would ever be brought to market. However, with Cisco's backing of the technology, 802.11g will certainly gain traction in the WLAN market, as Cisco's reach and influence in the business networking market is extensive.

802.11g Backgrounder
In mid-November 2001, Task Group G of the IEEE 802.11 Working Group finally agreed upon a standard for 802.11g, an almost monumental accomplishment given the heated technological and political battle that had been driven, of course, by vested interests of the various companies represented by the members of Task Group G. Now, the life of Wi-Fi is expected to be extended with the new 802.11g 
equipment, which promises speeds of up to 54 Mbps as well as backwards compatibility with the older 802.11b equipment, which supports speeds of up to 11 Mbps. 

The 802.11g Partnership
Intersil & Cisco will collaborate on NIC reference designs that comply with the IEEE 802.11g draft standard (802.11g expected to be ratified in the late 2002/early 2003 time frame). Intersil will contribute the physical layer (PHY), namely its 2.4 GHz Prism GT chip set. This Prism GT chipset is SiGe BiCMOS, and employs Direct Down Conversion (Zero-IF) architecture. It is very similar to the PRISM 3 
chipset, which also combines the baseband & MAC on a single chip, and employs Zero-IF architecture. Cisco will bring its MAC to the table, including special enterprise-class management and security features. Cisco's MAC will include support for its IEEE 802.1x/EAP security architecture, which is built into its Aironet 350 series of products. Shipments of these 802.11g chipset solutions are expected 
to start by the end of 1H 2002, with end-product shipments beginning in Q3 2002. 

Cisco's Motives
Cisco, with its dominance in the high-end routing and switching markets, wants to see decent margins from its WLAN products. The company has no desire to play in market segments characterized by high volumes and low margins, which is commonly what an increasing number of WLAN vendors are experiencing with their 802.11b product lines. So, Cisco has focused specifically on becoming the premier WLAN infrastructure provider for the enterprise. In January 2001, the company introduced its high-end 350 AP, and has kept prices comparatively very high for this product, albeit being able to sell many of them in the business market, due to its extensive channel and name brand recognition for enterprise networking. It has done this by implementing an interesting strategy. The company positions its 340 AP as being comparable to all other vendors' high-end Access Points (APs), and prices the 340 AP in line with high-end APs from its competitors. Meanwhile, Cisco touts its 350 Access Point as having very unique security and management capabilities, and being the only true enterprise-class AP. So, the 350 holds a sort of "King of the 802.11b APs" title, with its unique features and solid reputation.

This partnership fits squarely into Cisco's plan to become the enterprise access point provider of choice. The 802.11g solution will allow any OEM to get NICs to market quickly with a subset of the highly-valued Cisco security and management solutions. These NICs will be able to enjoy the Cisco features in conjunction with Cisco APs. Notably, Cisco isn't collaborating on the AP side, but just on the 
increasingly commoditized, and hence very low margin, client side. If the OEMs, however, try to use these 802.11g client solutions with their own branded APs, they won't be able to enjoy the networking & management features provided by the Cisco/Intersil 802.11g clients.

Additionally, Cisco has pledged its commitment to releasing 802.11a products as well. It continues to develop the 802.11a technology it acquired with Radiata. The company plans to release 802.11a products by the end of 1H 2002. 

Intersil's Position
Intersil is fundamentally pleased that its OFDM 802.11g technology was picked for the mandatory portion of the 802.11g draft standard. The company has an extensive list of 802.11b chipset customers, and plans to extend the life of its 802.11b installed base. With the Cisco agreement, Intersil is able to very quickly bring to market an 802.11g client solution for its OEMs, especially its lower-end OEMs. These low-end OEMs can then in turn get products to market much more quickly, with the ready-to-go security and management software features embodied in the solution. It is assumed that Intersil will also sell its Prism GT chipset separately, apart from Cisco's MAC, to customers who would prefer not to incorporate the features of Cisco's MAC into their 802.11g clients. But Intersil claims that its customers have reacted quite favorably to the announcement.

Meanwhile, Intersil is demonstrating its 802.11a technology at the Wireless Systems 2002 Design Conference and Expo during the week of February 25. This 5GHz chipset is currently in the sampling stage, and is expected to start shipping in 2H 2002. The company plans to work with WECA to create the test bed for Wi-Fi5 in early 2H 2002; for the certification process to begin, at least two chipset 
providers must submit a solution, one of which has already been submitted by Atheros. Intersil is ultimately planning to release a dual-mode 802.11g/802.11a chipset in 2003, which it envisions as a critical step in moving WLANs more aggressively out into the mainstream. 

Source: Cahner's In-Stat 

Mobileinfo Comments & Advisory: Wireless LAN standards debate apart, wireless LAN industry must squeeze every bit of juice from a spectrum in every geographical location. Therefore, 802.11g (802.11b with twice the speed in 2.4 GHZ band) makes as much sense as does the 802.11b. Therefore, we do not see any debate between 802.11b or 802.11g or for that matter 802.11a. Network designers need different wireless LAN technologies for different customers and their applications. With higher speed, distance coverage goes down. That suits fine for certain applications. This is a decision network planner should make. Intersils and Ciscos of this world need to provide multi-band and multi-standard access points where we can insert access cards with appropriately-configured radios in a rack to suit needs of mobile users. In this context, we welcome Intersil and Cisco get together and introduce 802.11g hardware in future.

Note: This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Readers should take appropriate caution in developing plans utilizing these products, services and technology architectures.  All trademarks used in this summary are the property of their respective owners.