News and New Products

Chip family offers WiMedia/UWB compliance

By Jeff Berman, News Editor -- EDN, 10/19/2005

Fabless semiconductor player Alereon has unveiled a WiMedia UWB (ultrawideband) chip family, which includes what the company says is the first commercially available 480-Mbps Certified Wireless USB/WiMedia PHY.

The family includes two offerings. The first is the AL4000 PHY chip set, which includes the AL4100 AFE (analog front end) and the AL4200 BBP (baseband processor). The second new offering is the AL4300, a combined W-USB (Wireless USB) MAC (media access controller) and baseband processor, which, when paired with the AL4100 analog front-end, constitutes a two-chip W-USB offering for portable products, PC peripherals, and consumer-electronics products, according to the company.

"This [MAC] is focused on mobile and portable devices in a W-USB model, and we are looking at connectivity back to the PC host or [in the future] an entertainment device like a TV or a set-top box," said Jim Robilard, Alereon's director of product marketing.

The AL4000 suits device like portable media players or digital cameras, where you need to synchronize data from that device with a host PC or share music, photos, and video with entertainment devices like stereos and TVs.

The AL4100 analog front-end is a WiMedia-compliant RF transceiver designed to optimize throughput and minimize power consumption in noisy RF environments, according to Alereon. The device offers interference rejection and supports all data rates up to 480 Mbps, the company added. The AL4200 baseband supports mandatory and optional data rates of the WiMedia PHY specification from 55 to 480 Mbps, Alereon said. Engineers can use this wide data-rate range to maintain connectivity over a wide range of distances, Robilard said.

"480 Mbps is the same as wired USB, and the most important thing [about the AL4000] is you are able to deliver the same kind of user experience in terms of the amount of time," he said. "We can deliver those rates in terms of power-per-bit at least 10 to 15 times better than 802.11, for instance."

The AL4000 PHY chip set is currently sampling and will go into production early next year. The AL4300 MAC/baseband will begin sampling early next year. Pricing begins at $9.86 (10,000).