While 802.11b, otherwise known as Wi-Fi, has made huge inroads as the wireless local area network technology of choice, many companies providing equipment and support for the technology acknowledge higher-speed alternatives will eventually displace Wi-Fi as the WLAN standard.
Those alternatives include 802.11a, which operates in the 5 GHz frequency band, and the European flavor HiperLan2. Both technologies provide data throughput of more than 54 megabits per second, compared with Wi-Fi’s current 11 Mbps, and operate in a cleaner frequency band compared with Wi-Fi’s 2.4 GHz band.
Hoping to make the transition between the incompatible standards, Sweden-based Spirea AB unveiled its TripleTraC solution, integrating .11a, .11b and HiperLan2 on a single chip. The company said that in addition to providing a lower-cost solution to vendors, the solution will allow companies to migrate to the different technologies as the standards develop.
“TripleTraC enables our customers to smoothly and inexpensively migrate their products to next-generation wireless networks,” said Anders Oldeback, vice president of sales and marketing for Spirea. “Our achievement of the lowest cost, smallest form factor and highest power efficient radio flexible chip means that [original equipment manufacturers] can enable wireless networking using almost any of today’s standards and those emerging tomorrow.”
Oldeback said Spirea is able to keep the cost of the chipset down by using a complementary metal oxide semiconductor instead of the more expensive bipolar CMOS method, which Oldeback noted was better for high power solutions. The CMOS chip also uses a 0.18 micron footprint, allowing it to fit easily into modules for personal digital assistants and laptop computers.
Spirea said it expects to begin sampling the chip during the second quarter next year, with full production scheduled by the end of 2002.
In anticipation of launching the chip, Spirea also announced a partnership with Embedded Wireless Devices combining the TripleTraC chip with EWD’s single-chip, multi-protocol wireless network processor. The combined chipset would be capable of simultaneous voice, data and media networking, allowing users to place and receive phone calls, stream audio and video, and share personal computer peripherals and Internet access, plus share high speed data wirelessly between multiple PCs.
