Silicon Wave Supports Adaptive Frequency Hopping For Coexistence of Bluetooth™ and 802.11b Wireless Technologies

AFH and Blue802™ Technology Are Complimentary Coexistence Techniques

SAN DIEGO - May 21, 2002 - Silicon Wave announced today their support of the FCC's recent ruling that permits Adaptive Frequency Hopping (AFH) as a method to help minimize interference between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) wireless technologies. The company confirmed that AFH is a coexistence solution that complements their recently released Blue802™ Technology. AFH is a technique that will allow multiple devices located in the same area to share the unlicensed 2.4GHz ISM band, while Blue802 Technology solves the technical issues created when Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless technologies are collocated in the same device. Silicon Wave also announced that AFH will be incorporated into future releases of Blue802 Technology once the Bluetooth SIG adopts it as part of the Bluetooth specification.

"Adaptive Frequency Hopping goes a long way to solving the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi co-existence problem, but we need to recognize that AFH is not a complete panacea," said David Hytha, vice president of Silicon Wave. "Serious interference issues such as receiver desense still exist when Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios are operating within one meter of each other - exactly the scenario that Blue802 Technology addresses in a notebook PC, desktop computer or any handheld device enabled with both wireless technologies."

To deliver simultaneous operation of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless technologies in PCs, Silicon Wave has developed Blue802 Technology, a unique collaborative real-time communications interface at the MAC layer that is transparent to the user. Data can be transmitted without interference while optimizing throughput, range and responsiveness. This enables Bluetooth applications such as mouse, keyboard, printing, file transfer and portable device synchronization to run at the same time the user is connected to the network over Wi-Fi.

"Blue802 Technology is the only solution available today that solves the coexistence challenge in notebook and desktop PCs," said Jarvis Tou, vice president of marketing and product management for Silicon Wave. "We look forward to the Bluetooth SIG adopting AFH into its specification and will include it as one of several enhancements to future releases of Blue802 Technology."

About Blue802™ Technology
Silicon Wave and Intersil have developed Blue802 technology, a unique collaborative real-time communications interface at the MAC layer that is transparent to the notebook PC or portable device user. Data can be transmitted without interference while optimizing system throughput, range, and responsiveness. This enables Bluetooth applications such as mouse, keyboard, printing, file transfer and portable device synch to run at the same time the user is connected to the network over Wi-Fi.