

Intel researchers put WiFi inside—the processor, that is - thepacketrat
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/09/intel-researchers-put-wifi-inside-the-processor-that-is/

======
jhaglund
tldr: more efficient WIFI = longer battery life

I think maybe some of you missed the part where they say:

 _While the back-end elements of wireless have been digitized long ago, the
front end—phase modulation, frequency synthesis, and RF power amplification,
for example—have largely been dependent on analog components.

The problem posed by those analog components is that while digital components
can be scaled down with improvements in silicon die manufacturing, the analog
parts can't—as they get smaller, they get worse, Ratter said. Yorgos Palaskas,
the research leader in Intel's radio integration lab, said that because analog
components generally performed much better when manufactured on a larger
scale, the analog components for WiFi transceivers and cell phones "are
typically made on a separate fab."

...

Some of the components already existed in a digital form, but needed to be
significantly improved. Intel had digital phase modulators already that were
developed for satellite and mobile communications, but they only handled
enough frequency channels for 3G communications. "We needed much wider
channels for WiFi, up to 40 MHz of bandwidth," Palaskas said. "It required
some very creative mathematical manipulation."_

------
Scene_Cast2
The title is somewhat misleading. Intel developed a "processor" (digital chip)
to handle WiFi. The title implies that the chip + antennas are integrated
within the CPU. Sure, in the future the digital chip may end up being
integrated, but this isn't major news, in my opinion.

~~~
caublestone
Are you sure? Because if you were right, I don't think Intel would use money
and resources to make a big announcement that they have caught up with
technology that has been around for 13 years. From all other news and PR
releases I've read, the wifi transceiver is integrated on the intel cpu dye. I
believe you still need an antenna, but at these frequencies those are quite
small (3mmx3mm inverted f).

------
ajb
This is basically Intel announcing that they are ready to compete in the
mobile phone/tablet SoC market. The other vendors already had integrated wifi,
3G/LTE, but used ARM processors, locking out Intel.

~~~
ippisl
I think that other vendors are using two chips by putting them inside one
package. I don't think anybody else made the cpu and rf sections on the chip
yet. also nice is that the rf is made using digital technology which benefits
from moore's law.

~~~
ajb
RF and logic on the same chip is not new. See
<http://www.fwdconcepts.com/dsp032112.htm> .

------
stephengillie
Will CPUs access HDDs via WIFI in the near future? Will it matter if they're
in the same case anymore?

~~~
wmf
Wi-Fi is about 1/10th the speed of SATA, so no.

~~~
stephengillie
Do you always need maximum speed?

~~~
IsTom
Always no, often yes. Just think about copying about anything from/to HDD. Now
let it take ten times as long. Game installations, torrents, everything.
Currently HDD is often a bottleneck.

~~~
stephengillie
So we'll copy directly HDD to HDD?

~~~
IsTom
Yeah, DMA makes it "not that bad" at first glance, but it's just a workaround
(hdd to hdd) and you'll see that you need a workaround on workaround next to a
workaround when you go that alley, instead of just getting just bandwidth.

------
nnnnni
Hopefully it'll be linux-compatible...

