This week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Broadcom announced the development of a new wireless combination (combo) chip designed to support more media and data applications without impacting the size or battery life for various devices including smartphones and tablets.
The BCM4330 integrates Broadcom’s 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless technology with Bluetooth and FM radio technologies all onto a single silicon die. This will be the first combo chip solution certified with the Bluetooth 4.0 standard, and it further will feature dual-band capabilities to allow Wi-Fi users to leverage the 5 GHz spectrum. This could be particularly useful for wireless sensors in fitness and medical applications.
We have seen a lot of development with Bluetooth in the fitness gear space, and now Broadcom’s new chip could further allow for all sorts of combinations thanks to its combo chip.