Intel's Santa Rosa notebook platform to include 802.11n before standard

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Although ratification of the 802.11n wireless broadband standard has dragged on for longer than expected, Intel announced that the Santa Rosa reference design for notebooks that will ship in the first half of 2007.

It includes the draft version of the next generation of Wi-Fi. The wireless chipset is codenamed Kedron and combines two transmitters and three receivers with signal processing to improve the connection.

802.11n promises 300Mbps bandwidth and corporate VP Mooley Eden claims that the value of faster connections for experiences like streaming video are worth the risk of putting into the platform ahead of the final standard.

This is currently expected to be ratified by the end of the quarter but it could be delayed again. Eden predicts that major Wi-Fi suppliers will deliver mass-market 802.11n products in the first half of the year and while nothing is guaranteed until the specification is available, he believes that Kedron will be very close to the final solution.

To counteract the problem of developing against a moving target, Intel is building on the official programme for validating equipment based on the draft version of the standard. According to Senior VP Dadi Perlmutter, "to ensure interoperability with as many access points as possible we are supplementing the Wi-Fi Alliance's interoperability testing with real world testing with Buffalo, D-Link, Linksys and Netgear; this robust testing program will allow interoperability across leading access points".

Perlmutter also emphasised that Wi-Fi isn't the only wireless technology for Santa Rosa; "Wi-Fi is like the pepperoni in the pizza; its good but you also need the cheese to cover it all." Nokia will manufacture an optional 3G card for Santa Rosa notebooks that supports the faster HSDPA standard. Despite trumpeting announcements by ClearWire and Sprint that promise US-wide WiMax coverage, Intel won't be adding WiMax to notebooks until 2008.

Not surprisingly, Santa Rosa will feature Core 2 Duo, with a faster 800MHz frontside bus that can be reduced in speed to save power. Moving to Core 2Duo means Santa Rosa also supports Active Management Technology (AMT) v2.5 for updating, repairing and administrating notebooks over Wi-Fi. Built-in NAND flash will support Windows Vista's new ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive acceleration technologies. The platforms will also support 3D graphics and Vista's Aero Glass UI.

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