Quantenna, a Silicon Valley startup announced the world’s first fully integrated 802.11n chipsets with 4×4 MIMO and transmit (Tx) beamforming. It’s designed to deliver guaranteed wireless bandwidth within homes.
Quantenna says they uniquely combine a 4×4 radio transceiver/antenna, concurrent dual band mode, mesh networking and transmit (Tx) beamforming – in a single chipset.
“Our unique combination of cutting-edge 4×4 MIMO and Tx beamforming position Quantenna in the forefront of the highly competitive Wi-Fi chip market,” said Dr. Behrooz Rezvani, Quantenna’s founder and CEO. It supports real-time video transmission via the 5 Ghz band and data over the 2.4 Ghz band. Adaptive vector mesh routing; and high efficiency power amplifiers with 18 dBm output power along with low-noise amplifier (LNA), constitute a front-end module.
They are developing a line of next-generation chipsets:
- QHS1000 – up to 1 Gbps link speed and 600 Mbps data throughput.
- QHS600 – up to 600 Mbps link speed and 400 Mbps data throughput.
- QHS450 – up to 450 Mbps link speed and 200 Mbps data throughput.
It will begin sampling its QHS family of chipsets with top-tier customers in both the retail and carrier markets in Q4 2008. Pricing is available upon request.
Three wireless systems for connecting HDTVs are competing for the home, says EE Times. This “battle of technologies” is being fought between three contending systems, 5 GHz, 60 GHz, and ultra wideband (UWB), according to ABI Research. Most established wireless vendors are waiting to see how the market evolves, says the research firm.
- WirelessHD (WiHD) uses the unlicensed 60 GHz band. The bandwidth available at 60 GHz allows data transmissions as fast as 4 Gbits/s. Developed by SiBeam, Intel, LG, Matsushita Electric, NEC Corporation, Samsung, LTD, SiBEAM, Sony and Toshiba are supporters. WirelessHD delivers up to 4 Gbits/second at distances up to 10 meters. Separately, the IEEE 802.15.3c group is defining a basic physical layer standard for 60 GHz radios.
- Wireless High Definition Interface (WHDI), using 5 GHz. WHDI, developed by Israeli company Amimon, reportedly achieves a data rate as fast as 3 Gbits/s. WiFi 802.11n technology using MIMO can achieve up to 600 mbps, but cannot yield a 3-Gbit/s data rate. For that, Amimon tapped an existing signal-processing technology called joint-source channel coding, rather than traditional compression which can add latency.
- Sigma Designs and Fujitsu Microelectronics America are collaborating on a UWB variant called Wireless HDAV to carry high def video. Sigma supplies a video processor and WiMedia complaint UWB chip set, and Fujitsu provides an H.264 video codec chip. It’s the first technology solution to support both the H.264 format and UWB based on the WiMedia standard. WiMedia Alliance uses Ultrawideband (UWB) in a band of frequencies from 4.2 to 4.8 GHz or higher. Their Wireless USB standard claims a data rate of 480 Mbits/s and works by compressing and expanding HD video images.
There is no consensus among consumer manufacturers on a single standard or unified wireless HD format.
But wireless connections are expected to simplify A/V installations and allow more flexibility in positioning TVs.
