Agere, Ubicom team for WLAN reference designs

By John Walko
iApplianceWeb
(03/19/03, 03:46:36 PM EDT)

ASCOT, UK - Agere Systems and Ubicom, Inc. have teamed to develop 802.11b/Wi-Fi reference designs, with the first offering expected to be a single-board design for access point, repeater and Ethernet bridge applications combining Agere's two-chip Wi-Fi device and Ubicom's IP2000 processor and software platform.

A prototype of the design, targeted at developers readying products for small and home office users, will be on display at the giant CeBIT Show this week in Hannover, Germany.

The companies expect to begin sampling customers in April. It will be offered as an upgrade to Ubicom's wireless development kit, and as a part of Agere's WaveLAN portfolio.

"By combining the industry's first integrated 802.11b radio and baseband module from Agere with Ubicom's revolutionary processor and software platform, we give ODMs the tools they need to rapidly and cost-effectively develop wireless products. This will drive the broad deployment of WLANs, and move the industry further along the path toward making communications ubiquitous and transparent," said Bulent Celebi, chief executive officer of Ubicom.

The access point reference design incorporates: Agere's WaveLAN (WL11411) integrated 802.11b radio and baseband module; the Media Access Controller (MAC); Ubicom's IP2000 processor and software platform, which is claimed to deliver wire-speed performance at up to half the cost, using one-third the power, in one-tenth the footprint of competing technologies; and development support.

The platform implements communications and control functions in software, allowing customers to support the industry's most prevalent networking protocols, including 802.11, Bluetooth and HomePlug, with a single processor platform.

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