News and New Products

Single-chip WLAN device supports MIMO

By Jeff Berman -- EDN, 6/27/2005

Wire-line- and wireless-communication silicon provider Metalink Broadband has introduced a the MtW8170 baseband chip, which is company’s second WLAN (wireless-LAN) offering in the last month. The new offering complements Metalink’s MtW8150, a single-chip WLAN RF device that supports MIMO (multiple-in, multiple-out) designs, which comprises two RF chains for wireless video distribution in home environments for data rates beginning at 200 Mbps. The company says that the combination of the MtW8170 and the MtW8150, which it calls WLANPlus, will comply with a as-yet-undefined 802.11n standards and will find use in digital-video recorders, set-top boxes, HDTVs, media adapters, and other applications, to provide multimedia connectivity in a home environment.

Ron Cates, Metalink vice president of sales and marketing, says that the chip supports 2×2 RFIC MIMO, operates faster than 240 Mbps, and supports the 802.11e QOS (quality-of-service) standard.Along with MIMO, WLANPlus uses an MAC (media-access-control) aggregation scheme and channel bonding for increased gigahertz per channel, enhanced performance, and higher throughput rates in an LPDC (low-density-parity-check) format with 40-MHz bonded channels for extended throughput and 20-MHz bonded channels for backward compatibility with 802.11a products. Channel bonding would suit 802.11n and is not available in competitor’s offerings, such as those from Airgo Networks (www.airgonetworks.com).

Another notable benefit of the WLANPlus platform is that it operates in a 5-MHz band, unlike Airgo, which uses a 2.4-GHz band for Centrino-based laptops. A major difference between the two bands is that 2.4 GHz only has four available channels, whereas the 5-GHz band has 20 channels, which is critical for video transmission and is noise-free. And with a 5-GHz band, no dropped packets occur, and video feeds arrive in the order they were transmitted to get a high-level of broadcast video quality. The 5-GHz band also does not interfere with other devices or Bluetooth- and microwave-based bands. “Working off a cleaner spectrum should allow for better QOS of wireless-video distribution and will provide a greater range and bandwidth that is more suitable for home-video distribution, unlike 801.11g and 802.11a/g chips,” says Sam Lucero, analyst at In-Stat/MDR.

Metalink’s MtW8170 will be available in sample quantities during the next quarter, and company officials say they target a price point of approximately $25 (high volumes) for the chip set

Metalink Broadband, www.metalink.co.il.