Atheros designs Bluetooth chip aimed at PCs: Most Bluetooth chips used in computers are repurposed from mobile applications, Atheros claims. Their new product is more efficiently designed with a lower cost of goods and integrated flash memory.
Also features the Solid Gold Dancers: Broadcom said that they will offer a single chip with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and FM radios on board. The chip uses a 65-nanometer (nm) CMOS process, which means its circuits are tightly packed using the most common manufacturing techniques. Size has a relationship to power requirements. The Wi-Fi is a/b/g; the Bluetooth 2.0+EDR with 2.1 upgrades possible.
Update: CSR on Feb. 7 also announced a Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and FM converged chip platform. The company released specific throughput figures, rare in the industry, noting that Wi-Fi by itself could achieve 23 Mbps in their chip designs, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth together using "collision detection logic" would drop Wi-Fi down to 18 Mbps of net throughput.
On Feb. 7, Texas Instruments also announced a triple-threat, this time with 802.11n.