Intel's WiMax venture may benefit all chip makers

BEIJING, May 21 (Chinese medianet) -- Plans for high-speed

wireless Internet will benefit Intel Corp. - an investor in the Sprint

Nextel-Clearwire WiMax venture - and analysts expect other chip makers to gain

from Intel's position and increased spending on similar networks.

Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. announced

earlier this month they would combine their wireless broadband units to form a

14.6 billion U.S. dollar communications company that would develop and market

high-speed mobile Internet service based on WiMax technology.

Intel - which invested in the project along with

several others - is slated to work with manufacturers to put WiMax chips in

laptops containing its Centrino 2 processors and other Intel-based mobile

Internet products. Intel and fellow investor Google Inc. also have options to

enter third-generation and fourth-generation wholesale agreements with Clearwire

and Sprint.

Jefferies Co. analyst John Lau said Intel's

move to put WiMax chips into laptops is similar to what the company did in the

past to promote the spread of Wi-Fi technology.

"We believe that Intel will include WiMax

capabilities into their notebooks by the end of this year; this will spur demand

for WiMax," Lau said.

Lau thinks the company's efforts to promote

technologies like WiMax and Wi-Fi are intended to promote overall computing.

These efforts "are not material to their revenue or their earnings, but as a

technology enabler this will definitely impact their microprocessor sales," he

said.

American Technology Research analyst Doug Freedman

noted that wireless infrastructure installation requires a fair amount of analog

content in base station boxes, so growth of high-speed networks could increase

demand for chips from companies like Linear Technology Corp. and Texas

Instruments.

He also pointed to radio frequency chip makers like

Anadigics Inc., TriQuint Semiconductor Inc. and RF Micro Devices Inc. as

companies that would see rising demand for their products from such

infrastructure buildouts.

(Agencies)