Broadcom: 802.11ac to become mainstream in 2013-2014

Broadcom Home and Wireless Networking senior vice president Michael Hurlston told DigiTimes that 802.11ac is anticipated to become the mainstream WLAN technology standard as early as Q2 2013 or as late as Q1 2014.

While it took nearly three years for 802.11n to become the mainstream WLAN standard, 802.11ac is expected to take the mainstream status in only one and half years after related applications enter the market because of the already mature environment for applications and the standard's technological advantage, Hurlston indicated.

Broadcom has offered its 5G Wi-Fi series chips based on 802.11ac for adoption by vendors of different types of terminal devices, Hurlston said. Based on these vendors' road maps of products, 802.11ac-enabled wireless routers will be launched in mid-2012, wireless gateways in the third quarter, TVs, STBs and Blu-ray Disc player and other multimedia devices in the fourth quarter of 2012, while tablet PCs and smartphones equipped with built-in 802.11ac modules will come to the market in the fourth quarter of 2012 or the first quarter of 2013, Hurlston indicated. The time for 802.11ac to become the mainstream WLAN standard hinges on popular use in smartphones, Hurlston pointed out.

Broadcom: 802.11ac to become mainstream in 2013-2014 - More news at DV Hardware

Gartner claims SSDs to become mainstream in 2012

Gartner claims solid state disks will break into the mainstream in the second half of 2012, when pricing is expected to fall to $1 per gigabyte.

At that point, Gartner expects SSD pricing to reach $1 a gigabyte. For the math-challenged among us, that means even fairly roomy SSD boot drives will fall well below $100�like, say, 64GB for $64. Considering the very palpable boot speed and responsiveness benefits, it does seem likely that many users would make the jump. Gartner expects NAND flash prices to tumble 30% this year and 36% in 2012.

For those who think $1/GB is still expensive, keep in mind that mechanical hard drives were at or above that threshold not long ago. In March 2003, we reviewed a trio of 120GB hard drives from Maxtor, WD, and Seagate that were priced in the $132-188 range.

Gartner claims SSDs to become mainstream in 2012 - More news at DV Hardware