Cambridge Radio Silicon (CSR)'s UniFi-1 is designed for low-power 802.11b/g and a/b/g: CSR is known for Bluetooth chipsets, and their new product might challenge Bluetooth's advantage in cell phones and other devices. CSR says their all-in-one solution doesn't require a host processor, nor (in the slightly larger consumer version of the chip) external flash memory. The chip will cost less than $8 in quantity plus $1 in other parts, which is a few dollars more than Bluetooth per unit. The tiny chipset will be available in samples this year and in production by mid-2005.
Reporting in ComputerWeekly.com indicates that the chipset uses much more power at full speed than a comparable Bluetooth chip, but most small devices can't transmit at anything like the full WLAN speed. The lowest 802.11g OFDM speed (to avoid mixed b/g networks) would be just as appropriate for most handhelds' capabilities.
Ah, my expertise finally comes in handy. In portable devices power usually matters less than energy. Lower data rates may be lower power, but they take much longer to transmit each packet, thus using more energy per packet. So for longest battery life you should use the highest speed available. Tricky, huh?