802.11b Delivers Increased Flexibility to Mobile Users
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 27, 2001--Virata® Corporation (Nasdaq:VRTA - news) today announced the release of its 802.11b reference design for manufacturers of wireless devices, such as wireless access points, and wireless-to-Ethernet or wireless-to-broadband routers. With the new Virata 802.11b RD6500 reference design, developers can get up and running quickly to create products that support wireless networking activity in the home or office. 802.11b-based products eliminate the need for rewiring or having unsightly cables and wires around living or work spaces to create a ``wire-free'' environment.
``Wireless innovation is on the rise and our new reference design will help our customers be first to market with new devices that seamlessly support wireless communication in the home or office, while simultaneously accommodating wired networks,'' said Duncan Greatwood, vice president of marketing at Virata. ``Virata is committed to providing its customers with a range of powerful networking solutions that enable the development of flexible and scalable broadband products. As a leader in the broadband gateway semiconductor and software market, we are uniquely positioned to help accelerate the use of wireless networking in the home.''
The new RD6500 reference design consists of a PRISM-based 802.11b module and drivers from Intersil Corporation (Nasdaq:ISIL - news), and Virata's unique ISOS(TM) (integrated software on silicon(TM)) platform. Customers selecting this reference design will benefit from having the drivers pre-integrated into ISOS 8.0, which is expected to save them considerable time and money in the development process. In addition, customers will no longer need to pay separate licensing fees for the drivers, nor do they need to spend time incorporating all the necessary protocols into their product. When the RD6500 is combined with Virata's BD6200 board, all the core hardware and software required to develop 802.11b-based products will be available in one complete package. In addition, the reference design can be used to help developers build a PCMCIA slot onto a gateway, thereby enabling a user to easily upgrade to 802.11b wireless functionality. Available now, the RD6500 reference design supports infrastructure mode, power management queuing, DHCP and wired equivalency privacy (WEP) security features.
``Intersil's PRISM technology provides the most powerful wireless networking solutions available for manufacturing IEEE 802.11b wireless products,'' said John Fakatselis, senior manager for Strategic Alliances of Intersil's PRISM Wireless Products business. ``When integrated with Virata's powerful 802.11b reference design, the PRISM solutions deliver the affordability, performance and quality that enables our mutual customers to quickly develop and bring Wi-Fi(TM) certifiable products to market.''
Actiontec Electronics, Inc., a leading manufacturer of broadband products, has chosen Virata's RD6500 for use in the development of their newest wireless access point product. ``We selected Virata's RD6500 reference design because it provided us with the high level of functionality we needed to cost-effectively build our 802.11b wireless product and get it to market quickly,'' said Chuang Li, vice president of engineering at Actiontec. ``No other company could offer us the same breadth of technology and engineering support.''
According to Cahners In-stat, revenue in the wireless LAN market is expected to reach nearly $4.6 billion by 2005, which underscores the tremendous opportunity that exists for broadband vendors. ``Virata has made an important step by licensing Intersil's PRISM II chipset and combining it with its ISOS platform to create a reference design for wireless device manufacturers,'' said Mike Lowe, director of Enterprise and Residential Communications at Cahners In-Stat. ``By doing so, they are helping to accelerate the widespread adoption of IEEE 802.11b wireless local area networks and drive the evolution of wireless home networking.''
About 802.11b
802.11b is the IEEE global standard for high-rate wireless local area networks (WLANs) that allows broadband products to operate at 2.4GHz and deliver an 11 megabit-per-second (Mbps) data rate. With 802.11b WLANs, mobile users are no longer dependent upon hard-wire access to the network backbone. They can get Ethernet levels of performance, throughput and availability with an 802.11b-based product, thereby making it easier and more cost-effective to access a home or office network from anywhere in the world. With reliable anytime, anywhere access to a network, users will now have more flexibility and capability to communicate with their colleagues, friends or family to share time-critical information, provide troubleshooting support or coordinate schedules.
About Virata's ISOS Platform
Virata's ISOS is the common element among all of Virata's industry leading communications processors and has been deployed in more than six million broadband wireline (e.g. DSL) and wireless installations. The richly featured ISOS networking and applications software suite enables Virata's customers to reduce first time design cycles. Additionally, the fact that ISOS extends across Virata's entire communications processor family makes the savings even more dramatic for subsequent product generations, enabling Virata customers to take their own value-added software into their new designs without having to repeat existing software engineering efforts. The unique ISOS product line, which uses Virata's ISOS software, consists of the following: Azurite(TM), Virata's pre-integrated voice-over-DSL solution; Aluminum(TM), Virata's symmetric DSL family; Beryllium(TM), a communications processor integrated with an ADSL PHY; Helium(TM), the low-cost, PHY-neutral communications processor family; Lithium(TM), a low-cost, PHY-neutral communications processor for PCI applications; and Magnesium(TM), the industry's first ISOS voice processing product. |
