Edited by author 02-04-2005 01:35 PM
Your statement: "Intel will, of course, carry on selling Wi-Fi chips (Centrino is the foundation of this platform) and it will, when it can, move the Wi-Fi radio onto the processor."

it may not be that far away. to be able to move WIMAX, rather thant WI-Fi onto the processor.

see http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/MICRO/fma/pdf/WCA_RG.pdf

It looks to me like Si-works has sip cores that could slide right onto the processor. Interestingly ROSEDALE, is mainly a MAC layer, not a radio see Richardson's comments :

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1643772,00.asp >>>>>>> Intel's Rosedale chipset includes a 802.16-2004 compliant MAC, an OFDM PHY, an integrated 10/100 Ethernet core, an inline security block and a controller interface. Richardson said the security core would include both AES and DES encryption capabilities that are required by the WiMAX spec. Initially, the security block will not be used for content protection, although it could be in the future, he said.

The Rosedale chipset does not include the radio, which Intel is sourcing from third-party partners—the same strategy it used to enter the WiFi market. Eventually, however, Intel has "definite" plans to develop the radio portion of the chipset, Richardson said. >>>>>>>>>>

So there may well be a path to pc silicon for on chip wimax that is ahead of onchip centrino/wifi.

Food for thought ...

r