SMIC, ASTRI team for dual-mode UWB MAC ASIC

The Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute and foundry SMIC said their goal is to offer wideband IPs to foster the development of advanced wireless RFICs in China.

By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- Electronic News, 4/21/2008

Mainland China’s largest semiconductor foundry, Shanghai, China-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) and the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI)  today announced a partnership to create what they say is the world’s first dual mode ultrawideband (UWB) media access controller (MAC) IC.

The UWB MAC will manufactured on SMIC’s 0.13-micron mix-mode CMOS process technology by the foundry’s RF group that provides design supports and mixed-signal RFIC open lab services in Shanghai to advance mixed-signal RFIC development on 0.18-, 0.13-, and other technologies. 

ASTRI and SMIC said their goal is to offer wideband IPs to foster the development of advanced wireless RFICs in China.

The companies noted that this UWB MAC ASIC is WiMedia compliant and supports both wireless link protocol (WLP/WiNET), and the information group resource sharing (IGRS) standard networking applications.

In addition, the ASIC includes advanced multi-hop connectivity and video/audio quality of service (QoS) features for targeting wireless personal area networking applications, and is meant to allow electronic manufacturers to create high speed, seamlessly connected wireless multimedia consumer products, SMIC and ASTRI pointed out.

The MAC ASIC supports UWB wireless data transmitting and receiving at rates of 53.3Mb/s, 80Mb/s, 106.67Mb/s, 160Mb/s, 200Mb/s, 320Mb/s, 400Mb/s, and 480Mb/s. As well, it contains a 32-bit direct peripheral component interconnect (PCI) 2.2 host bus interface.

The MAC ASIC is available in fpBGA-144 Package, with drivers and APIs supporting both Windows and Linux. The ASIC product development kit comes with a mini-PCI card reference design and soft IP core including RTL and software/firmware source code.

“As UWB technology advances and related protocols and industry standards mature, the introduction of this UWB MAC ASIC will enable IP-based high speed wireless digital electronics applications for consumer electronics markets,” Peter Diu, VP of the wireless multimedia technologies group at ASTRI, explained in a statement.

UWB technology is expected to be deployed in different market segments, including wireless USB and IP based applications, he continued.

“The booming wireless communication market drives fabless companies to develop ICs for various applications," Dr. Lee Yang, SMIC senior research fellow, said in the statement. "The success of the development of the wireless ICs depends a lot on advanced mixed-signal and RF processes and foundry’s design support. With the success of ASTRI’s WiSMAC IC, we are confident that more wireless IC companies will benefit from SMIC’s advanced mixed-signal and RF processes.”