Taiwan's InProcomm readies 802.11g , .11a/g chips

Taiwan's InProcomm readies 802.11g , .11a/g chips
By Mike Clendenin, EE Times
July 11, 2003 (9:51 a.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030711S0011

TAIPEI, Taiwan — IC design start-up InProcomm is getting ready to launch its second round of wireless LAN chips, based on the IEEE 802.11g and 802.11a standards.

InProcomm will likely be the first Taiwan company to roll silicon into the .11g market, but hardly the last, indicating that the nascent market will be every bit as brutal as that for the .11b standard.

The company will ship samples for client side and access point/routers in late August for .11g and in early September for an .11a/g combo baseband/MAC. Volume production should start 3 to 4 weeks after sampling. The USB versions will come along in the fourth quarter, with mass production slated for December.

The introduction timetable is about one quarter behind the company's original schedule, but InProcomm is betting on few problems with first silicon and a smooth transition to ramping volume, said Craig Conkling, marketing manager at the Hsinchu, Taiwan-based company. "There will be some fine-tuning, a week of two at most, and then they can be with the ODMs," he said.

InProcomm's AirConn series includes the client-side IPN2220 and AP IPN5320. They are compliant with draft standards for IEEE 802.11h, IEEE 802.11i, and IEEE 802.11e. Security features include 64/128/152-bit WEP, AES in hardware and TKIP.

Multimedia features include EDCF and HCF functions as well as multicast and queue management and a burst-mode for throughput improvement. The IPN2220 includes an on-chip UART port for WLAN+GPRS combo solutions.

On its heels are a handful of other local companies, most notably Realtek Semiconductor, ADMtek and ZyDAS. Realtek will sample .11g and .11a/g chips late in the third quarter, with mass production in the fourth quarter, the company said. ZyDAS, a subsidiary of Zyxel Communications, will also have a .11g chip in the fourth quarter. ADMtek has not released a timetable for its .11g introduction.