Alereon, Staccato and Wisair Demonstrate Interoperable UWB Products
AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 20-- Leading UWB silicon providers Alereon, Staccato Communications and Wisair today announced their initial attempts at interoperability were successful. At TDK Test Services (http://www.tdkrf.com), a division of TDK Corp located in Austin, Texas, the three companies performed interoperability testing of their pre-production PHY silicon to confirm support for multiple packet types over all the mandatory data rates of the WiMedia specification. The interoperability activities began in February 2005 amongst the companies known to have working silicon at the time, with the exchanging of test vectors to validate both the WiMedia UWB PHY and MAC specifications and to ensure future product interoperability.
"This is an important milestone because it demonstrates the maturity of the newly released Ecma-368 High Rate Ultra-Wideband PHY and MAC Standard, which is aligned with the WiMedia specifications. The success reached today stands as a testament that the specifications were meticulously well documented resulting in interoperability amongst even the first silicon implementations, and indicates the technology is nearing a point for deployment into high volume markets and multiple applications," said Bob Wheeler, Senior Analyst at The Linley Group. "A specification is not an industry standard until you get at least two independent designs that can interoperate, and many OEM companies will not even consider a technology as a candidate until multiple suppliers exist. One of the key strengths of the WiMedia Alliance is having multiple chipset suppliers, reducing product risk for OEMs."
This announcement indicates a tremendous stride toward commercialization. Several test equipment vendors continue to aid this process by developing lab and production test equipment including: UWB RF test equipment from Agilent and Tektronix, WiMedia and Certified Wireless USB protocol test instrumentation from Catalyst, Ellisys, and LeCroy, and regulatory test services from TDK.
"We are pleased to have hosted this significant event which demonstrates the maturity of the technology," said Pat Carson, Vice President of Business Development. "TDK is strongly committed to facilitating the commercialization of UWB by offering components, regulatory and radio performance test services."
Alereon, Staccato and Wisair have been key contributors to the WiMedia specifications and board members of the WiMedia Alliance and key contributors to the Wireless USB Promoter Group. The recently completed testing is good progress towards final product certification activities planned throughout 2006 which will include interoperability events, compliance workshops and unplugfests. There are many companies engaged in these efforts, and events will likely include this trio along with additional fabless semiconductor companies and several of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers.
About Alereon, Inc.
Alereon, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company providing complete solutions for Certified Wireless USB and WiMedia ultra-wideband (UWB)applications. A technology pioneer, Alereon was first to demonstrate a WiMedia PHY running at 480Mbps in October of 2004. Alereon's products promise to replace the complex tangle of wiring used to interconnect today's consumer electronics, computer peripheral, and mobile devices with high-bandwidth, low-power, low-cost wireless links. Further information is available on the company's website: http://www.alereon.com.
About Staccato Communications, Inc.
Staccato Communications, based in San Diego, Calif., is an Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology pioneer with applications expertise in Certified Wireless USB, Bluetooth and Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity. The fabless semiconductor company serves the personal computing, consumer electronics, and mobile phone industries with small form factor single-chip, all-CMOS wireless system-in-packages (SiP). Staccato's WiMedia-based offerings include PHY, MAC, drivers, application software, development kits and reference designs. Forore information, please visit http://www.staccatocommunications.com.
About Wisair Ltd.
Wisair is a leading provider of Ultra Wideband (UWB) and Wireless USB
(WUSB) chipset solutions for consumer electronics, PC peripherals, and mobile devices. Leveraging the management teams' decades of wireless communications product development expertise, Wisair is the first company to deliver operable WiMedia-based UWB chipsets and small form-factor reference designs. Today,
the fabless semiconductor company continues to focus on delivering low-cost, low-power, and high bit-rate wireless connectivity solutions. For more information, visit the company's web site at http://www.wisair.com.