Broadcom Enables Bluetooth® Headsets to Recharge 5 Times as Fast and Provide Double the Talk Time of Existing Products

Fourth Generation ROM-Based 65 Nanometer Solutions Transform Headset Use with Wind Noise Suppression, Integrated Multilingual Voice Prompts and Ease of Use Enhancements

IRVINE, Calif., Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced its fourth generation of advanced Bluetooth® headset system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions delivering the best power savings platform and premium audio quality for compelling next generation headset designs. Featuring the industry’s first 65 nanometer (65nm) CMOS headset chips, this new family of Bluetooth solutions leapfrogs the competition by delivering superior audio quality, key user interface enhancements and unrivaled power performance and talk time.

Announced today is the Broadcom® BCM2074x family of Bluetooth headset SoC solutions that builds upon the field proven benefits of the previous generation BCM2044 and BCM2044S devices (which are available in popular headsets). The new BCM2074x family adds powerful ’industry-first’ features, including new wind noise reduction algorithms, multi-language ’voice prompt’ technology and integrated fast-charging power innovations that enable headsets to charge five times faster than existing products. These advancements are delivered in an architecture that allows consumers to pay less for better quality and higher performing headsets.

“We have leveraged our leadership in the Bluetooth market to integrate superior audio quality and ease of use. This new family of chips extends our technology leadership with the industry’s lowest power consumption that is convenient to the end-user and friendly to the environment,” said Craig Ochikubo, Vice President & General Manager of Broadcom’s Wireless Personal Area Networking line of business. “This level of feature integration is optimized by the use of 65nm technology, providing more value, features and capabilities to consumers than devices using older, less efficient technologies.”

SmartAudio® Improvements Reduce Annoying Wind Noise

“Consumers are sold on the concept of Bluetooth headsets, but usability and sound quality must improve in order for them to become a ubiquitous part of mobile communications,” said Emma Naudo, wireless analyst from IMS Research. “By focusing on ways to improve the consumers’ headset experience, companies like Broadcom are helping to dispel the myths about Bluetooth headsets and enable the market to reach its full potential.”

Broadcom’s SmartAudio® technology, which benefits from a company-wide effort to deliver superior voice and audio quality across all its communications products, has been a key driver of the company’s growth in the Bluetooth headset market. With the new BCM2074x family, Broadcom adds enhanced noise suppression capabilities that can reduce background noise by nearly 40 percent when compared with existing noise cancellation techniques. The SmartAudio upgrades include dynamic wind noise suppression and near-end speech enhancement algorithms (such as dynamic compression and spectral shaping) that overcome the most challenging and annoying audio interferers.

Wind noise is a particularly challenging issue frequently complained about. Regular noise reduction techniques have little effect on wind noise because its characteristics are very different from babble, car and other types of noise. The signal contamination caused by wind becomes spectrally indistinguishable from speech at higher wind speeds making it difficult to filter out. The BCM2074x family combats this interference by utilizing innovative algorithmic techniques in both single and dual microphone configurations to identify and detect wind in real-time and then applies high-speed suppression to deliver a clearer, more enjoyable audio experience.

Making Bluetooth Headsets Easier to Use

Broadcom continues to drive innovation in the headset market, integrating key enhancements based on customer feedback and consumer preference data. New headsets based on the BCM2074x platform can provide more than 4 hours of talk time after a 5 minute charge versus older generation and competing technologies that can only deliver 30 minutes or less after a similar charge. In addition, this new platform enables double the talk time overall of other devices.

As new headsets increasingly add sophisticated features, existing user interfaces that lack displays and are limited to using blinking LEDs to convey status information undermine the user’s ability to take full advantage of these advancements. Headset pairing, battery life, muting and multipoint status can now be easily conveyed via an integrated voice prompt decoder, allowing users to hear multi-language voice prompts when they use their headsets both in basic and advanced modes.

While the Bluetooth SIG continues to drive improvements in the ’pairing’ process, this task often remains a challenge for first time users. In an effort to alleviate these consumer challenges, Broadcom has also added innovations in the applications design for an improved pairing experience, both in the basic as well as advanced use cases, including multipoint, where users can access multiple phone handsets with a single headset device.

Product Information

The BCM2074x family of SoC solutions is based on Broadcom’s field proven Bluetooth technology that supports Bluetooth Versions 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0. Each chip solution in the new family provides all of the major functional blocks required for a mono headset including the power management unit (PMU), a ’fast-charge’ capable charger and audio codecs providing a highly integrated, low system cost solution with reduced power consumption and superior audio quality.

Availability and Pricing

The Broadcom BCM2074x family of Bluetooth headset SoC solutions, including the Broadcom BCM20740 SoC (single microphone), the Broadcom BCM20741 SoC (single microphone with SmartAudio) and the Broadcom BCM20742 SoC (dual microphone with SmartAudio) are all sampling to early access customers. Pricing is available upon request.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is a major technology innovator and global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications. Broadcom products enable the delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia to and throughout the home, the office and the mobile environment. We provide the industry’s broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art system-on-a-chip and software solutions to manufacturers of computing and networking equipment, digital entertainment and broadband access products, and mobile devices. These solutions support our core mission: Connecting everything®.

Broadcom, one of the world’s largest fabless semiconductor companies, with 2008 revenue of $4.66 billion, holds more than 3,650 U.S. and 1,450 foreign patents, and has more than 7,750 additional pending patent applications, and one of the broadest intellectual property portfolios addressing both wired and wireless transmission of voice, video, data and multimedia.

A FORTUNE 500® company, Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. Broadcom may be contacted at +1.949.926.5000 or at www.broadcom.com.

Cautions regarding Forward Looking Statements:

All statements included or incorporated by reference in this release, other than statements or characterizations of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry and business, management’s beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us, all of which are subject to change. Forward-looking statements can often be identified by words such as “anticipates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “predicts,” “believes,” “seeks,” “estimates,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “would,” “could,” “potential,” “continue,” “ongoing,” similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words. Examples of such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the capabilities of Broadcom’s SmartAudio technology and headsets based on the BCM2074x platform, demand for Bluetooth-enabled mono headset products, our position in that market, and the timing of volume production for Broadcom Bluetooth transceivers. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statement.

Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom in connection with the BCM2074x family of Bluetooth mono headset SoCs include, but are not limited to

-- the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt
Broadcom’s Bluetooth technologies for wireless headset applications;
-- trends in the wireless networking markets in various geographic regions,
including seasonality in sales of consumer products into which our
products are incorporated, and possible disruption in commercial
activities related to terrorist activity or armed conflict in the United
States and other locations;
-- the gain or loss of a key customer, design win or order;
-- the volume of our product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales;
-- our ability to timely and accurately predict market requirements and
evolving industry standards and to identify opportunities in new
markets; and

-- competitive pressures and other factors such as the qualification,
availability and pricing of competing products and technologies and the
resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products.


Additional factors that may cause Broadcom’s actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to the list that can be found at http://www.broadcom.com/press/additional_risk_factors/Q42009.php.

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, recent Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss the foregoing risks as well as other important risk factors that could contribute to such differences or otherwise affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. The forward-looking statements in this release speak only as of this date. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement, except as required by law.

Broadcom, the pulse logo, Connecting everything, the Connecting everything logo and SmartAudio are among the trademarks of Broadcom Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States, certain other countries and/or the EU. Any other trademarks or trade names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.