TI to Pair 802.11n and Bluetooth in Latest Mobile Chip

First Broadcom, now Texas Instruments. The venerable TI has, following in the footsteps of Broadcom’s similar announcement last week, unveiled plans for a single chip that will give low-end mobiles the power to tune in FM signals, interface with Bluetooth devices, and boast WLAN technology, without interference issues commonly caused by such integration.

This integrated chip will come in two flavors, BlueLink 7.0 and WiLink 6.0. BlueLink combines FM and Bluetooth, enabling you to use your car stereo to listen to MP3s stored on your mobile. It’s the WiLink that is the triple threat, including support for the widely anticipated 802.11n standard. This powerhouse chip will allow mobiles to share videos and photos between mobiles and notebooks, for example. That’s a significant increase in functionality for phones not technically “smart.”

One key issue that TI says it has resolved is the WLAN-Bluetooth conundrum. Both technologies operate on the same frequency, 2.4 GHz. Texas Instruments says it has solved that problem by encapsulating all functionality in the one chip, so the signals emanate and are received from the same source—which, in effect, eliminates any interference because it’s really only one device in the end.

These high-powered chips are expected to be available in 2008, for providers to be named later.