Wireless Application

WiMax technology is all set for take off. With the signing of WiMax protocol of 803.16 last year the next generation of wireless application is ready to be introduced worldwide.



Intel, the main promoter of WiMax, is aggressively looking for OEM companies to cost down WiMax equipment. While there are many such companies in Taiwan that are keen to have key alliances with Intel, only Gemtek is Intel’s authorized partner in CPE (customer premises equipment) manufacturing. With Intel’s support, it is estimated that Gemtek will ship one million pieces of WiMax equipment in the next couple of years.



Limited by the supply of WiMax chips, other OEMs are already looking at alternate sources. “We are looking for chip solutions and have already adopted Wavesat’s solution for product development. We plan to launch WiMAX CPE products with Wavesat’s chip in Taiwan and China by end of year 2005,” says Raymond Ou, director of R&D at Z-Com.



Thanks to the keen competition in bagging OEM customers, Intel plans to increase the number of authorized partners of WiMax chips. Industry experts say that those companies that gain design win in OEMs will largely control the WiMax market.



Will Taiwan’s OEMs benefit from the WiMax fever? It is estimated that local system companies will extend their manufacturing advantage from WiFi to WiMax. The main development of WiMax equipment can be divided into WiMax modem and WiMax access point and router, and finally to board level products. There will be a lot of manufacturing opportunities for DSLAM and CPE products, and since the volume of CPE will be pretty huge, CPE orders will be the sweet point for local makers, industry experts point out.



Until now the chip’s early adopters such as Wavesat, Intel,Fujitsu, Cygnus and Pico Chip among others have dominated the market. These companies focused their R&D on the PHY chip and have filed many patents to thwart others from gaining a foothold. Commenting on the design trend of the WiMax chipset, Edison Chen, analyst at IEK says, “The key technology of WiMAx standard of 802.16-2004 for PHY is OFDM. The core technology of 802.16e PHY is OFDMA. With the feature of backward compatibility and wide range of applications, it is predicted that 802.16e is going to be the mainstream standard of WiMax.”



Chen adds that if the local fabless companies are interested in WiMax PHY chip design, they have to either avoid the existing patents or pay for the licensing fee to those early movers. “Both ways cost a lot in resource allocation.” Engaging in WiMax Chip design is possible, he says, but anticipates that it will be tough for the local fabless designer.



Not only have OEM companies invested a lot in WiMax manufacturing, the Taiwan government too is pushing a complete plan, called “M Taiwan,” to reinforce the resources within the island. “The government has established a three dimensional plan to set up a WiMax cluster. First is chip development, and then the next step will be the key system such as base station, WiFi-WiMAX gateway, fixed relay station and WiMax terminal. Finally, we will build up a WiMax application platform, including VoIP over WiMAX, IPTV and online games. We firmly believe that from chip makers to system integrators – all will benefit from this ‘M Taiwan’ plan,” says Lin Feng-ching, Minister of State, the Executive Yuan [the highest executive department of Taiwan government organization].



Terminal applications will be key to the widespread use of WiMax. “Only when terminal applications such as mobile entrainment, VOIP roaming, and location base service are widely available, will substantial growth occur,” says Jackie, assistant VP of ZyXEL Communications.