Qualcomm Incorporated, a leading developer and innovator of advanced wireless technologies, products and services, today introduced the WCN1312™ - a single-chip, high-performance 802.11n-compliant wireless local-area networking (WLAN ) solution for handsets and mobile devices. This highly integrated device supports data rates of up to 72 Mbps - significantly higher than previous 802.11a, b, and g Wi-Fi solutions - for a better user experience while downloading data, watching streaming video or surfing the Internet.

The WCN1312 solution offers a high level of integration with a 2.4 GHz 802.11n baseband processor, media-access controller, RF transceiver, transmit power amplifier, low-noise amplifier, transmit switch, power coupler and radio-frequency (RF) bandpass filter all in a small 7x7 mm package. This simplified design eliminates the need for many external RF components, minimizing the component count and resulting in a smaller system footprint.

The new WCN1312 chip uses low-power 65nm CMOS technology and advanced power-management techniques to minimize sleep, standby and active power consumption. It is optimized for performance with Qualcomm’s complete Mobile Station Modem™ (MSM™) solutions and supports a variety of mobile operating systems, including Qualcomm’s Brew Mobile Platform®, Android and Windows Mobile. The WCN1312 chip is the industry’s first mobile handset device to support both 1x1 and 1x2 dual-receive configurations to increase range and data throughput performance when needed. The WCN1312 solution also implements advanced coexistence architecture and algorithms to optimize performance when paired with Qualcomm’s Bluetooth® solutions.

Scheduled for sampling in the second quarter, the WCN1312 chip is expected to be in volume production by the fourth quarter of 2009, and is part of a complete end-to-end solution for 802.11n from Qualcomm, which also includes the WCN1320™ solution for consumer electronic devices.