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Commack, NY -- In the lead-up to the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, where all the competing factions vying to be the multimedia wireless distribution scheme of choice for the home will be out en masse, Quantenna Communications Inc. has debuted a complete reference design based on its QHS600 IEEE 802.11n wireless LAN (WLAN) 4x4 multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) chipset.
The QHS600 was announced (see EE Times story in October 2008 and is a single-chip, 5-GHz solution capable of 600-Mbit/s connections that integrates baseband, media access control (MAC) and four RF transceivers, along with their respective power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers and Tx/Rx switches.
However, according to David French, CEO of Quantenna, "Of more value is the digital beamforming hardware with on-chip DSP doing real-time characterization of the Wi-Fi channel to perform [signal] steering on a packet-by-packet basis." The DSP is an ARC 4 and in all there are 14 patents around this area, he added. Other features include concurrent dual-band mode and mesh networking. According to French, it should be under $10 by the end of 2010.
The newly announced reference design kit (RDK), dubbed the QHS600x, consists of a radio GMII module connected via a mPCI connector to a host adapter board and enables straightforward board boot, bring up and program execution. It also includes integrated functions for various I/O interfaces, including gigabit Ethernet, DDR SDRAM, flash, USB 2.0 OTG, ARM JTAG debug port, GPIOs, serial port and four antenna ports.
Also included is a complete software developer's kit (SDK) that implements the entire networking and device discovery/connectivity functionality required for a wireless video bridge module supporting the 802.11n standard. Additionally, Quantenna and LitePoint have worked together to provide a full test suite of specialized video-over-wireless radio frequency (RF) calibration and performance-characterization software.
According to French, Quantenna will introduce a video bridge at CES and he sees as strong play for its technology with service providers. The company already has a deal with Swisscom, one of its backers, as well as eight other providers, unnamed as yet.
Pricing and availability
The RDK is available now, with pricing set at between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on volume.
For a full product datasheet, click here.
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