From EDN Europe: Dual-mode silicon solves 802.11a/b problem

Which wireless-LAN standard should you choose for new-product development: the relatively established IEEE 802.11b standard, offering 11-Mbps data rates and operating in the 2.4-GHz band, or the emerging 802.11a version, offering 54 Mbps but operating at 5.25 GHz? Start-up Synad wants to solve at least part of that problem with its AgileRF platform, which aims to provide seamless coexistence of the two standards and to allow you to introduce products for the 802.11b version that you can upgrade to later include the 802.11a version. AgileRF provides switching management, identifying which services are available in a given environment and configuring the optimum service for data transmission and reception. It also assesses and monitors the availability of other access points in the vicinity and manages transfers between access points, allowing at least local "roaming." Synad aims to achieve this performance without loss of any data and, ultimately, without even dropping any data packets.

Central to this scheme and backing up the software part of the offering with hardware is a dual-mode RF capability. The company is now evaluating first silicon of its own design of front-end silicon, which implements dual-receiver channels for the two frequencies, all on standard CMOS. To achieve this capability, Synad has developed MAS (Macro Analogue Synthesis) for the design of its RF chips.

Synad based this software suite on work that Leuven University in Belgium developed as part of a European research project in analogue synthesis. The software characterises a process and generates device models that include all parasitics that are active to the frequency of operation. You use this knowledge base to parameterise basic analogue circuit blocks so that you can quickly execute the reuse of circuit blocks for different frequencies or gain figures. Synad says that better modelling also cuts the number of iterations you need to get an RF circuit operating correctly in all parameters, typically reducing iterations by 50%. The company therefore expects to be able to quickly and easily produce silicon designs for variants of its wireless-LAN concepts. It does not anticipate making MAS available outside the company.

Synad, +44 118 913 1500, www.synad.com.