In principle, Bluetooth and IEEE-802.11b LANs do not compete, said Craig Conkling, Philips' wireless-network marketing manager. Indeed, Philips Semiconductors manufactures Bluetooth transceiver chips and ARM-based baseband processors used, for example, in the Ericsson wireless-headphone peripheral for cell phones. "Bluetooth is a cable replacement; it only goes 10 meters," Conkling said.

But Bluetooth advocates say the short-haul network will provide wireless access points for portable computers in hotel lobbies, convention centers and at airport gates. It is for this slot that Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11 are seen as rivals.

Philips' single-chip 802.11 radio will also make Ethernet competitive with other wireless-LAN schemes, said Conkling. Home networking kits now sell for $350, and Apple's Airport network interface card (NIC) sells for $99, he said. Though the sweet spot for a Bluetooth implementation has been pegged at $5, it is "realistically" in the $18 range now, said Conkling. The SA2400 — along with additional chip set enhancements — will bring the bill of materials for an 802.11 NIC into this range in 2003, he said.

IEEE 802.11b will always be somewhat more expensive than Bluetooth, Conkling said, largely because the direct-sequencing algorithm of Ethernet is a bit more difficult to implement than the randomized spread spectrum Bluetooth uses in the 2.4-GHz band. Also, Ethernet's buffer memory requirement is higher than Bluetooth's, he said.

But at 11 Mbits/second, 802.11 wireless networks have a much higher data rate than Bluetooth, at approximately 721 kbits/s. Because of its bandwidth, the Ethernet standard can be implemented in residential broadband applications such as streaming video from a gateway to a TV or a Web pad, Conkling said.

Philips' chief competitor in 802.11 chips is Intersil, with its Prism chip set. Lucent Technologies manufactures 802.11 NICs using Philips' radio and its own baseband processor, Conkling said. Enhancements to Philips' wireless Ethernet line will eventually include an integrated power amplifier and radio, as well as an integrated media-access controller and baseband processor, he added.

In the SA2400, a VCO and fractional-N synthesizer tune out the RF carrier with its out-of-phase replica. Fabricated in a 0.5-micron 30-GHz BiCMOS process (Philips' Qubic3), the chip merges a low-noise automatic gain control (AGC), a pre-driver, receive and transmit mixers, receive and transmit filters, I/O buffers, plus a VCO and a fractional-N synthesizer, into one chip. The tuning architecture eliminates most of the external passives, resulting in smaller pc-board area, Conkling said.

Typical receiver-system performance includes a gain of 100 dB, noise figure of 6 dB and AGC settling time of 5 microseconds. In the transmitter system, output power ranges from --15 dBm to 5 dBm in 1-dB gain steps. Sampling is to begin late in the first quarter.