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The WLAN IC market has grown rapidly over the past
four years as businesses and consumers have sought to wirelessly network PCs and
other peripherals. At the same time, the WLAN IC market has consolidated, with
many former vendors now either out of business or acquired by larger companies,
in the face of stiff price competition. Surprisingly, Taiwanese vendors have not
yet had as significant an impact as many thought they would. At present, a handful
of vendors, mostly located in the US, dominate the WLAN IC market. These
include Agere, Atheros, Broadcom, Conexant, Intel, Marvell, and Texas Instruments.
Work on new WLAN IC standards to improve rate, reach and functionality continue.
The 802.11i security standard was ratified in June 2004,
and ratification of the 802.11e QoS standard, for multimedia applications, is
expected later in 2004. A standard to improve Wi-Fi throughput to a minimum of
100 Mbps is currently being developed and is expected to be ratified sometime
in 2006 or 2007, although pre-standard equipment is already starting to appear
on the market. In the market research report, In-Stat/MDR predicts that Wi-Fi
in consumer electronics and Wi-Fi in mobile handsets will be a significant opportunity
for WLAN ICs over the forecast period, with revenue from WLAN ICs sold into CE
and IP telephony applications together accounting for roughly half of the $2.1
billion in revenue expected to be earned in 2008.
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