SAN JOSE, Calif. — Startup Celeno (Ra'anana, Israel) formally debuted at the Connections conference Tuesday (June 24) its first chip, a modified 802.11 baseband optimized for video.
The company is now sampling its CL1300, a 5 GHz .11a/n media access controller which it claims can deliver 34 Mbits/s at the application layer more than 120 feet and through multiple walls of a home at extremely low packet error rates. The chip uses a form of MIMO technology with beam forming and switching capabilities.
The company will charge between $20-$30 for the chip that began sampling last week and should be in production by the end of the year. It dissipates less than 3W and has an embedded microcontroller but requires a third part RF chip.
The company aims for design wins in set-top boxes, TVs and other home video devices. It expects initial users will build the chip into peripheral devices.
"We have been demonstrating this in an FPGA-based version for quite some time and have several companies interested in using it as soon as we hit production," said Lior Weiss, vice president of marketing for the 50-person company.
Celeno has backing from Greylock Partners and an Israeli venture capital firm. It will compete with other startups doing video-optimized versions of WiFi including another Israeli startup, Amimon.
