dcom Delivers Flexible New Wi-Fi® Workhorse That Slashes Cost, Size and Power for PCs, Broadband Gateways and Gaming Pla

  

IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced a new low cost single-chip wireless LAN (WLAN) solution that enables manufacturers to build smaller, more affordable Wi-Fi® products. This highly integrated WLAN chip has a 40 percent smaller footprint and consumes half the power of previous Broadcom® solutions while offering the industry's lowest "rest of bill-of-material" (RBOM) costs and delivering the same superior performance of previous solutions. The chip's flexible architecture is optimized for single-band or dual-band use, making it an ideal solution for adding Wi-Fi to a variety of devices, including notebook PCs, broadband gateways and gaming platforms.

To further emphasize the flexibility of its new WLAN chip, Broadcom has developed a unique reference design that combines best-in-class Wi-Fi and Bluetooth® capabilities on a standard mini-card. This turnkey solution provides PC manufacturers with a cost-effective way to offer two of the most popular wireless technologies in small notebooks, and offers innovative features to ensure optimal Wi-Fi and Bluetooth performance.

"By pushing the boundaries of integration and power management, Broadcom is driving down the cost of existing wireless designs and facilitating new opportunities for Wi-Fi in next-generation devices," said Bill Bunch, Director of Marketing for Broadcom's WLAN line of business. "Our new WLAN platform enables our customers to deliver wireless capabilities in new platforms and at new price points. As a result, we expect to increase Wi-Fi penetration in the high-volume segments where Broadcom is already a strong player."

Announced today is the BroadcomBCM4312 chip, which integrates an 802.11 MAC, baseband processor, and a dual-band radio (2.4 and 5 GHz) onto a single silicon die. The BCM4312 [1] delivers significant size, cost and power benefits for a variety of products that use the PCI Express® (PCIe) or secure digital I/O (SDIO) interfaces.

The BCM4312 [1] is a cost-effective solution for service providers deploying wireless DSL gateways. To enable subscribers to share broadband connections throughout their homes and businesses, over half of all DSL gateways now feature Wi-Fi capability. That proportion is expected to reach two-thirds by 2010(1). Not only can the BCM4312 [1] drastically reduce the cost of adding Wi-Fi to broadband modems, but its small footprint and SDIO interface allow for direct integration on the DSL motherboard, enabling manufacturers to design sleeker form factors.

While Wi-Fi is an increasingly popular feature for residential gateways, it has already achieved nearly ubiquitous penetration into notebook PCs. The BCM4312 [1] addresses three key issues facing PC manufacturers -- size, cost and power consumption. In addition to reducing the cost of the standard minicard form factor, the 10mm x 10mm package enables PC OEMs to implement the new half minicard form factor that enables WLAN in ultra-mobile PCs. By leveraging the low-power WLAN architecture that Broadcom designed for cellular handsets and other mobile devices, the BCM4312 [1] can greatly extend notebook PC battery life and reduce RBOM costs by up to 45 percent.

Industry's First Wi-Fi + Bluetooth Module for Notebooks

To provide PC manufacturers with additional wireless connectivity options, Broadcom has introduced the new BCM94312MCGB reference design, which integrates the new BCM4312 [1] WLAN chip with Broadcom's industry leading BCM2046 [2] Bluetooth chip onto a single PCIe mini-card. Combining wireless technologies onto a single module reduces the number of card slots required for wireless subsystems in smaller notebook platforms.

The design utilizes a shared antenna system that eliminates the need for separate Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennas -- resulting in lower component costs and better performance. The new reference design also supports Broadcom's popular InConcert® coexistence technology, a unique set of enhancements to reduce interference and improve performance in devices using both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Availability

The BCM4312 [1] is shipping in production quantities to leading PC OEMs and broadband customers. Pricing is available upon request.

About Broadcom Wireless Solutions

As more consumers rely on wireless devices to stay connected, Broadcom is delivering the technologies that make those connections fast and reliable. With the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and combination solutions, Broadcom enables a true wireless ecosystem that provides a superior experience across local and personal area networks. This wireless ecosystem leverages Broadcom's 802.11n technology as the backbone of the digital home and provides seamless connectivity to many types of devices built upon its popular 802.11g and Bluetooth solutions.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is a major technology innovator and global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications. Broadcom products enable the delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia to and throughout the home, the office and the mobile environment. We provide the industry's broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art, system-on-a-chip and software solutions to manufacturers of computing and networking equipment, digital entertainment and broadband access products, and mobile devices. These solutions support our core mission: Connecting everything®.

Broadcom is one of the world's largest fabless semiconductor companies, with 2006 revenue of $3.67 billion, and holds over 2,200 U.S. and 900 foreign patents, more than 6,600 additional pending patent applications, and one of the broadest intellectual property portfolios addressing both wired and wireless transmission of voice, video and data. Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. Broadcom may be contacted at +1.949.926.5000 or at http://www.broadcom.com.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:

All statements included or incorporated by reference in this release, other than statements or characterizations of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry and business, management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us, all of which are subject to change. Forward-looking statements can often be identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "predicts," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will," "should," "would," "could," "potential," "continue," "ongoing," similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statement.

Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom in connection with the BCM4312 [1] chip and BCM94312MCGB reference design products include, but are not limited to, general economic and political conditions and specific conditions in the markets we address, including the volatility in the technology sector and semiconductor industry, trends in the broadband communications markets in various geographic regions, including seasonality in sales of consumer products into which our products are incorporated, and possible disruption in commercial activities related to terrorist activity or armed conflict in the United States and other locations; the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Broadcom's technologies and products in the markets for wireless LAN applications; delays in the adoption and acceptance of industry standards in those markets; the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders and our ability, as well as the ability of our customers, to manage inventory; the gain or loss of a key customer, design win or order; our ability to scale our operations in response to changes in demand for our existing products and services or demand for new products requested by our customers; our ability to specify, develop or acquire, complete, introduce, market and transition to volume production new products and technologies in a cost-effective and timely manner; intellectual property disputes and customer indemnification claims and other types of litigation risk; the quality of our products and any remediation costs; changes in our product or customer mix; the volume of our product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales; the effectiveness of our expense and product cost control and reduction efforts; our ability to timely and accurately predict market requirements and evolving industry standards and to identify opportunities in new markets; problems or delays that we may face in shifting our products to smaller geometry process technologies and in achieving higher levels of design integration; our ability to retain, recruit and hire key executives, technical personnel and other employees in the positions and numbers, with the experience and capabilities, and at the compensation levels needed to implement our business and product plans; the risks and uncertainties associated with our international operations; competitive pressures and other factors such as the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products; the timing of customer-industry qualification and certification of our products and the risks of non-qualification or non-certification; the availability and pricing of third party semiconductor foundry, assembly and test capacity and raw materials; fluctuations in the manufacturing yields of our third party semiconductor foundries and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of our products; the risks of producing products with new suppliers and at new fabrication and assembly facilities; the effects of natural disasters, public health emergencies, international conflicts and other events beyond our control; the level of orders received that can be shipped in a fiscal quarter; and other factors.

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, recent Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss the foregoing risks as well as other important risk factors that could contribute to such differences or otherwise affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. The forward-looking statements in this release speak only as of this date. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement for any reason.