The AirForce family of
wireless LAN chipsets from
Broadcom offers unique
advantages that help drive
leading marketshare for
our partners: superior
performance, reliability,
industry-leading roadmap
and faster time to market.
The Force in Wireless Networking
The numbers are compelling. In 2002, more than 15 million wireless LAN nodes
were purchased by consumers and businesses.
The consumer market for wireless LANs has grown
at least 100% per year since 1999.
By 2005, more than 100 million nodes will be in use.
It takes an innovative, strong technology partner
to keep up with this type of demand.
Broadcom Delivers
Broadcom is your one-stop-shop for wireless LAN solutions. With a solid track record of delivering
highly integrated silicon solutions in wired environments, Broadcom announces AirForce™, the
broadest line of wireless LAN reference design solutions in the industry.
Wireless technology is evolving rapidly. Future standards will include speeds of 54 Mbps and beyond,
with features such as voice support, video support, and advanced security. Wireless technology
will be required in everything from personal computers, access points and residential gateways, to
handhelds, mobile telephones, printers, and web cameras. Eventually, even entertainment equipment,
automobiles, and trains will be equipped with wireless connectivity.
Partnering with Broadcom gives you a competitive edge. We provide high-performance, full-featured,
and flexible wireless technology for your product line, without adding prohibitive costs to the design,
extending the product development cycle, or jeopardizing the core functionality of the product.
What is AirForce
™
?
AirForce is the name of Broadcom’s family of wireless LAN solutions. AirForce supports all of
the mandatory 802.11 signaling standards, in a variety of client and infrastructure form factors for
the home, business, and public network segments. AirForce solutions combine 802.11b, 802.11a, and
new 54g™ (802.11g) wireless technologies with SmartRadio™ performance, first-to-market silicon
integration and a common architecture that makes it easier to add wireless capabilities once and then
leverage that investment efficiently as new technologies emerge.
AirForce Key Benefits
Best-in-class performance—
Broadcom is the first vendor to deliver products that support the
full suite of 802.11b, 802.11a, and 54g™ wireless technologies. The AirForce SmartRadio™
design delivers higher throughput, greater range, and lower CPU utilization than competitors,
giving your customers the best wireless LAN experience available.
Leading-edge features—
AirForce goes beyond raw speed to provide support for today’s and
tomorrow’s applications, such as multi-layer quality-of-service support, support for the global
configuration and management. Security concerns are met with hardware encryption (WEP 128,
AES OCB, and AES CCM) as well as WPA and 802.1x software support. AirForce products are
designed for seamless interoperability with Broadcom’s Bluetooth
®
and GPRS solutions.
54g™ is the new high-speed,
compatible wireless LAN
technology for home, office
and public networks. The
54g logo ensures that
products are completely
interoperable with other 54g
products and are compatible
with the draft IEEE 802.11g
specification. 54g will quickly
become the next mainstream
wireless LAN technology
because it is faster, works
farther, is backwards com-
patible—and is affordable.
Faster
54 Mbps data rates, nearly
five times faster than the
current 802.11b standard
of 11 Mbps
Farther
Coverage of up to 200
meters from access points,
60% further than current
54 Mbps 802.11a networks
Backwards-Compatible
Meets 802.11b specifications
and works with any 802.11b
product.
in the home in public places in the enterprise
TM
Lowest-cost approach—
Broadcom extends its established silicon leadership to wireless LAN,
with highly-integrated, standard all CMOS process, two-chip 11 Mbps and 54 Mbps 2.4 GHz
solutions and a three-chip 54 Mbps dual band solution that provides low unit costs and low
power consumption. This architecture allows highly manufacturable, single-sided reference
designs and puts Broadcom on the path to AirForce One™ single-chip wireless LAN solutions.
Built for the future—
AirForce is built to provide manufacturers with the simplest deployment
and migration path in the industry. Microsoft
®
WHQL certification, SmartRadio
™
continuous
calibration and a fully digital CMOS process assure a fast deployment and production ramp.
The use of a common MAC architecture and OneDriver
™
software across the family
provides manufacturers a seamless, low-cost migration to new technologies. AirForce architecture
supports upgradeability to future IEEE standards such as security and quality of service.
The AirForce Wireless Reference Design Architecture
The AirForce family of reference designs produces highly integrated solutions.
•
Client
BCM20XX Series direct conversion single-chip radios provide leading receiver sensitivity,
throughput and range. BCM43XX Series Baseband/MAC chips use a common MAC
architecture and OneDriver
™
software to create a highly leverageable wireless platform.
The BCM43XX Baseband/MAC, a BCM20XX radio, an antenna, and a minimum of external
components create client devices such as Mini PCI, CardBus, or USB.
•
Infrastructure
BCM47XX Series Wireless Network Processors, BCM33XX Series Broadband Gateway Cable
Modems, and BCM63XX Single Chip ADSL CPE Modems combine with wireless client
solutions to create wireless LAN infrastructure devices such as access points or broadband
residential gateways.
•
Software
OneDriver
™
software provides maximum stability and flexibility. For both client and
infrastructure products, customers can use the identical software across wireless LAN technolo-
gies. AirForce client software requires zero configuration and includes advanced utilities for
Microsoft XP operating systems and provides a common user interface for legacy operating
systems. In addition, AirForce software is customizable for performance and differentiation.
All-CMOS Customizable, Wireless Wireless Production Software Tools Integrated
WLAN Complete Network Router Ready for Wireless
Transceiver Client Processors Software Reference High-Volume Comms
Solutions Software and/or SDK Designs Manufacturing Solutions
AirForce provides the industry's broadest wireless LAN technology portfolio
SmartRadio
™
SmartRadio is Broadcom’s
suite of radio and signal
processing innovations that
improve the performance
of AirForce™ wireless LAN
devices, including:
•
Continuous Calibration,
which tunes the wireless
LAN radio on-the-fly,
providing optimal per-
formance.
•
Wireless Echo Reduction,
which uses sophisticated
equalization techniques
to improve delay spread
tolerance and 802.11b
range in environments
with complex surfaces,
such as partitioned office
spaces, airports, ware-
houses, and homes.
•
Advanced OFDM, which
improves throughput in
54g and 802.11a systems
by dynamically adapting
to radio noise conditions
during the signal decoding
process.
BROADCOM CORPORATION
16215 Alton Parkway, P. O. Box 57013
Irvine, California 92619-7013
©2002 by BROADCOM CORPORATION. All rights reserved.
AirForce-BR100-R-11.14.02
Phone: 949-450-8700
FAX: 949-450-8710
Email: WLAN@broadcom.com
Web: www.broadcom.com
Broadcom
®
, the pulse logo,
Connecting Everything
®
, 54g
TM
,
OneDriver
TM
,
AirForce
One
TM
,
SmartRadio
TM
and
AirForce
TM
are trademarks of Broadcom Corporation and/or its subsidiaries in the United States and
certain other countries. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED is a Certification Mark of the Wireless Fidelity Alliance, Inc.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
