Broadcom's InConcert® technology is designed to allow Bluetooth® and Wi-Fi® wireless devices to co-exist and operate collaboratively in mobile devices such as netbooks, notebooks and smartphones. InConcert technology lets products enabled with Broadcom Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chips intelligently share the 2.4 GHz frequency range, coordinating transmissions to optimize throughput and performance as required by a range of applications.
As the leader in both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, Broadcom is in a unique position to provide combined solutions that deliver leading performance for both radio technologies and apply interference mitigation techniques to make them work better together.
- Competitive Bluetooth/Wi-Fi co-existence implementations have used various techniques, including:
- 2/3-wire co-existence schemes with standards-based signaling
- Software co-existence schemes to augment limited hardware capabilities
- 2/3-wire co-existence schemes with standards-based signaling
- InConcert technology uses advanced 4-wire hardware co-existence schemes with intelligent interference mitigation mechanisms determined by the type and number of Bluetooth peripherals being serviced. InConcert implementations are carefully tested with a number of different Bluetooth headset and mouse products that are currently shipping so that Broadcom InConcert combo modules deliver a satisfying user experience, thereby mitigating return risks and support calls.
- InConcert implementation builds on these design fundamentals, significantly improving Wi-Fi throughputs while ensuring a consistent Bluetooth user experience. This is done using adaptive algorithms that determine the exact use case (e.g. mouse, stereo audio and internet download), and tune medium access accordingly.
- Other improvements are enabled by not restricting the medium access mechanism to standards-based Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) schemes, wherein Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are alternately given full transmission/reception rights without interference from the other radio.
- Other improvements are enabled by not restricting the medium access mechanism to standards-based Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) schemes, wherein Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are alternately given full transmission/reception rights without interference from the other radio.
- With InConcert, a netbook user could listen to music over Bluetooth headsets at the same time as downloading a large data file over a Wi-Fi connection. Since the two technologies operate in the same radio frequency, the Wi-Fi transmission could cause some degradation of the music stream. However, InConcert minimizes this radio interference to deliver a more satisfying user experience.
