Back in October, Broadcom made a promise to announce a new combo-chip every 60 days. First came the BCM2049, which packed FM and Bluetooth onto a single die. A bit past their self-imposed deadline (albeit still with impressive haste), they’ve managed to one up themselves with the BCM4329.
What it does:
- Dual-band 802.11n – for sharing video clips, music and pictures between portable devices and other Wi-Fi products
- Bluetooth – for hands-free calling, cordless data synchronization and high-quality music streaming to headphones and other audio devices
- FM transmit and receive – for streaming music directly from a personal media player to a car stereo without special adapters and listening to radio broadcasts
Through what I can only imagine is some sort of sorcery, they’ve crammed FM (transmitting and receiving), Bluetooth, and 802.11n WiFi into one tight little package. To manufacturers, this means lower bill-of-materials and more internal real estate available to other components. To you, this means some top notch features should find themselves in the most compact of handsets when these start shipping sometime next year.