Intel-led alliance stirs angst over future wireless spec

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: September 1, 2005 7:42:16 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Intel-led alliance stirs angst over future  
wireless spec
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com


Intel-led alliance stirs angst over future wireless spec

Patrick Mannion
(08/31/2005 10:45 AM EDT)
URL: <http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170102117>

MANHASSET, N.Y. — Intel has convinced fellow chip makers Broadcom,  
Atheros and Marvell to join forces outside of an IEEE wireless LAN  
group to develop an interoperable physical and media access control  
(MAC) layer scheduled to be presented for IEEE acceptance by November.

By working independently of the IEEE's 802.11n next-generation task  
group, Intel has angered task group members who accuse the Intel-led  
alliance of everything from co-opting the IEEE process to outright  
antitrust violations that could draw Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  
scrutiny.

Suspicions have been amplified by the PC-centric nature of the  
alliance as well as the secretive approach the group has taken,  
including the signing of nondisclosure agreements. The omission of  
Airgo Networks Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.) from the alliance has also  
fueled accusations that the alliance is trying to offset Airgo’s  
competitive advantage.

Airgo is the only company shipping a multiple input, multiple output  
(MIMO) product. All agree that MIMO will be integral to whatever spec  
comes out of the 802.11n group,. Airgo is claiming a two-year  
advantage over competitors.

Intel's gambit comes at a critical time for the task group who's  
members are under customer pressure to complete next-generation WLAN  
implementations by early next year. Continued pressure from  
proliferating ultrawideband (UWB) options for video only add to the  
pressure.

The two groups backing proposals before the IEEE agreed to merge  
their efforts last July. They are working under a November deadline  
to complete a converged proposal. The groups are: WWiSE, which is led  
by chip makers Broadcom, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics and  
Airgo; and TGnSynch, led by Intel, Agere, Atheros and Marvell.

“It’s now a two-horse race to November,” said George Elantis, an  
engineering manager at STMicroelecronics (San Jose, Calif.),  
referring to the similar timelines the IEEE task group and the Intel- 
led alliance have set. “This [outside alliances] has been tried  
before, and while they say it’s to speed things up, I’m not  
convinced. But you can’t prevent it from happening,” he said.

Airgo President Greg Raleigh agreed that the Intel move would further  
delay the standards process.

Elantis also worries that the new alliance would not cater to core  
customers — namely, handset manufacturers — given its PC focus. Anuj  
Batra, a member of the technical staff at Texas Instruments, said he  
spoke with Intel about the plan and remains neutral. “We’ve taken a  
look . . . and we’re not in favor or against it,” he said.

"We would prefer an IEEE specification,” he added, which is important  
for the range of applications TI is targeting. Asked about antitrust  
accusations leveled against Intel in response to formation of the  
alliance, Batra responded, “Antitrust is always a concern.”

Intel, Atheros and Broadcom declined to comment, but Paramesh Gopi,  
general manager of Marvell Semiconductor Inc.’s Embedded and Emerging  
Business Unit (Sunnyvale, Calif.), defended the group’s approach. “We  
need to standardize on the codings and the basic elements of the MAC  
so that we have interoperability between all the silicon players and  
[achieve] some level of convergence into the specifications so we  
don’t have to keep stalling it and delaying it for commercial  
deployment," Gopi said.

The goal, he added, is to develop a baseline specification for  
laptops that allows them to implement a basic 2x3 or 4x4 MIMO system.  
"Keep in mind that we want the flexibility to discuss multicast and  
network and application-level interoperability to keep it  
extensible,” Gopi said. Extensibility will eventually include low- 
power modes for handsets. “Whatever gets done in the handset will  
probably fall out of what we’re doing here. We can’t alienate these  
guys as they’ll be the main drivers.”

While conceding that Airgo succeeded in its current implementation  
which is shipping in routers from Linksys and D-Link, Gopi said he  
views Airgo's approach as a dead end. “Airgo has no notion of how to  
implement a handset, they’ve never done one,” he said. “When you’re  
trying to build a standard that’s going to be far reaching and go  
into many platforms, you have to get out of the retail mindset and be  
a little more charitable and think of a platform that’s has to extend.”

While many claim the alliance is delaying a spec and will lead to  
nonstandard silicon, Gopi disagreed. "The same guys that go to the  
IEEE meetings are part of this alliance. We can’t go and build a  
Broadcom, Intel, Atheros, Marvell solution without it being blessed  
by the IEEE — no one is going to accept that,” he said.

Alliance members continue to drive the specification within the IEEE,  
he added." If the four silicon vendors can’t get together and decide  
on interoperabilty and make the right tradeoffs, we’ll be bogged down  
by a standards process which is unforgiving in terms of time. We  
might as well get it settled offline. It in no way slows down the  
standards process.”

The secretive nature of the discussions enables the free flow of  
ideas within the alliance without fear of intellectual property being  
compromised, said Gopi. “We don’t want to get stuck in any legal  
issues with anyone."

[snip]
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>



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