Broadcom’s IEEE 802.11a/g access point and client reference designs are among the first devices to be Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ for WMM™ (Wi-Fi Multimedia) Power Save requirements.

The certification is driven by the Wi-Fi Alliance and ensures that wireless LAN products, such as those based on Broadcom^® chipsets, are interoperable with other mobile products that implement the new WMM Power Save features. These features extend the battery life of wireless-enabled mobile devices while maintaining appropriate quality of service (QoS) levels for voice, video and data applications.

WMM Power Save enhances legacy 802.11 power save technologies and includes elements of the IEEE 802.11e QoS standard. The new features increase the power efficiency of Wi-Fi^® devices with enhanced signaling capabilities, and improve performance with flexible power management that allows applications to maintain latency requirements. This will enable manufacturers to add Wi-Fi capabilities to a wide variety of battery-powered devices that are used for latency-sensitive multimedia applications, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) handsets, PDAs, laptops, gaming consoles and portable entertainment devices.

Early certification enables Broadcom to immediately support customers who need to include WMM Power Save features in their next-generation Wi-Fi devices. The Wi-Fi Alliance has also chosen Broadcom’s dual-band access point reference design (the BCM94704AGR) and dual-band cardbus reference design (the BCM94309CB) for its WMM Power Save test environment, to be used in the certification process for other Wi-Fi products.

“WMM Power Save substantially minimizes the battery life and latency constraints that previously limited the application of Wi-Fi in consumer electronics,” said Stephen Palm Ph.D., Technical Director for Broadcom. “Broadcom’s hardware partners can take advantage of our early certification and test bed participation to build products that not only provide enhanced QoS features, but also extend the battery life of mobile devices that are used for wireless voice and video applications.”