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Broadcom Crams 802.11n, Bluetooth, and FM Onto a Single Chip
Broadcom has managed to cram 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and FM reception/transmission all into a single "combo wireless chip." Designed to be a better wireless implementation for portable devices, the chip seeks to lower chip counts and integration costs. "Broadcom is the second firm — following Atheros in a single-function chip — to announce a single-stream 802.11n product, in which one of 802.11n's advantages is shaved off in favor of a faster baseline performance and lower battery consumption. This move is meant to replace 802.11g in portable devices without draining a battery faster and providing other advantages that make up for what's become a slight cost difference."
Broadcom wireless chipsets are crap. And I am speaking out of real embedded system design experience here.
Agreed, but from a different perspective. Their support for users running Linux is atrocious. I absolutely hate purchasing a wireless PCI card from a major maker only to find they've changed chips between revisions, and the new chip doesn't have drivers. Of course, the makers are just as guilty, since they don't mark the packaging in any way.
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Broadcom is one of the last remaining holdouts that doesn't give out chip specs for their networking devices. Because of this, it's *very* difficult to create decent linux drivers for their chips.