Airgo Networks, developer of innovative Multiple Input, Multiple Output WiFi chips, announced this week a new generation of MIMO chips with faster speeds, longer range and dual bands (2.4 GHz & 5 GHz)
Airgo’s Gen3 chips are said to support for data rates up to 240Mbps - “almost three times the speed of other premium wireless technologies on the market today”. The new chips employ 40 megahertz (MHz) wide channels rather than the 20 MHz used in current Airgo products.
Airgo’s new chipset is designed to shuttle large files and media-rich content like video, IPTV, music, photos and games, across a wireless network. It remains 100% compatible with 802.11b, 11g and 11a Wi-Fi, (without the speed enhancement, of course).
Airgo says it eliminates the need for wired connections, offering faster speeds than wired 10/100 Ethernet used in routers, laptops, PCs, set-top boxes, consoles and TVs. Airgo says real-world tests show actual TCP/IP throughput of over 120Mbps with uncompressed traffic, surpassing the performance of wired 100BaseT Ethernet. For enterprises, Airgo’s third generation technology is said to make the wire-free office a reality.
Airgo’s Gen3 chipset features a single chip with two complete radios fully integrated to achieve further aggressive board-level integration, which has resulted in a 15% reduction in the overall Bill of Material (BOM) cost and a 20% reduction in power consumption.
Airgo’s first generation MIMO technology is currently shipping in a wide range of products from companies including Belkin, Buffalo, Linksys, Netgear, Planex, Samsung, Smartvue and SOHOware. Their second generation MIMO chips provides a lower cost solution.
Belkin’s groundbreaking 3 antenna MIMO router has been recently supplimented with a 2 antenna MIMO router while Linksys introduced their WRT54GX2, a 2 antenna version of their 3 antenna WRT54GX, in the $100 range. Both products are based on the cheaper Airgo chipset.
Tom’s Networking has additional details on the new MIMO chips, which are currently sampling to select partners, with retail product availability expected by late Q4, 2005.
Airgo is not the only MIMO player (although they say they’re the only “True MIMO”). Video54 has a successful “MIMO-like” smart antenna systems for consumer applications. Its BeamFlex smart MIMO antenna is used by Netgear in their RangeMax WPN824 Wireless Router. Multiple internal antennas “beam” a signal to the end user. This approach, says Video54, enhances range at lower cost since multiple RF radio chains are not required. Signal processing combines signals from the multiple antennas.
Video54 will announce next week that it is changing its name to Ruckus Wireless and that it has grabbed $9 million in VC funding.
Both sides of the MIMO debate are battling for the next generation of WiFi - 802.11n - which is expected to utilize MIMO and feature at least 100 Mbps speeds.
Everything seemed to be going swimmingly until recently:
The TGn Sync group, backed by Intel among others, and the wWise group, supported by Texas Instruments and friends, were stuck in an impasse for months. In February, the TGn Sync group won an initial confirmation vote. But the group could never get the 75 percent approval needed in a second confirmation vote that would push the proposal forward as the 802.11n draft.
This July, the two opposing groups agreed to merge their efforts to work under a November deadline to complete a converged proposal for 802.11n.
But there’s trouble in paradise:
Now Intel has convinced Broadcom, Atheros and Marvell to join forces outside of the IEEE to develop an interoperable physical and media access control (MAC) layer scheduled to be presented for IEEE acceptance by November.
By working independently of the IEEE’s 802.11n next-generation task group, Intel has angered task group members who accuse the Intel-led alliance of everything from co-opting the IEEE process to outright antitrust violations that could draw Federal Trade Commission (FTC) scrutiny. Suspicions have been amplified by the PC-centric nature of the alliance as well as the secretive approach the group has taken, including the signing of nondisclosure agreements. The omission of Airgo Networks from the alliance has also fueled accusations that the alliance is trying to offset Airgo s competitive advantage.
Related DailyWireless MIMO stories include; MIMO Expanded, Finding MIMO, D-Link’s MIMO, Netgear’s MIMO, Belkin’s MIMO and the Linksys MIMO, MIMO Reviews, TGn Leading for 802.11n, Nortel Demos MIMO Cellular, Ext Antennas for Belkin’s MIMO, Intel Does MIMO, Airgo’s MIMO chips, Motia’s Smart Antenna Chip, Finding MIMO, MIMO Update, Lumera’s Smart Antenna, Intel Connects the Dots, MIMO and Phased Arrays, and More Antennas Get Smart.
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