MiniPCI card combines Bluetooth, 802.11b protocols

Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), Intersil Corp., and Smart Modular Technologies Inc. have developed a miniPCI card that combines Bluetooth and 802.11b wireless protocols for use in portable devices that require both wireless transmission technologies.

The combo card use CSR's channel skipping technology to minimize the interference between the Bluetooth and 802.11 radios, as well improve the throughput of the Bluetooth radio by as much as 50 percent over solutions that rely on MAC level signaling.

The card also features Intersil's PRISM 3 802.11b chipset along with CSR's BlueCore2 chip to provide Class 2 Bluetooth functionality. The module has a Bluetooth radio sensitivity >-82dBm and a typical power output of 2dBm. It also has an 802.11b radio sensitivity >-85dBm and a power output of 16dBm.