Article Tools

• 

Staccato Communications has announced the delivery of the SC3224R combo BluetoothMini Card reference design kit. The SC3224R is the industry’s first solution that combines Bluetooth technology and Certified Wireless USB onto a single PCI Express mini card form factor design to provide a fully integrated wireless PAN solution for notebook PC and wireless desktop applications.

By combining wireless PAN technologies onto a single mini card, OEMs are only required to use a single mini card slot on a notebook PC, leaving the other slots available for other radios for WLAN and WWAN. The initial version of the SC3224R reference design kit will support current-generation Bluetooth and Certified Wireless USB for dual-mode wireless PAN applications. Future generations of the reference design, when allowed by the Bluetooth 3.0 specification, will support tri-mode functionality by adding Bluetooth 3.0 capabilities. Staccato’s multiprotocol MAC architecture and protocol independent kernel uniquely enable the simultaneous support of multiple protocols on a single chip.

The SC3224R design enables the use of a single antenna shared simultaneously by both radios through a diplexer without any significant degradation in performance to either radio. Antenna placement is an increasing problem in notebook PCs because of the increasing number of radios that are included. Sharing a single antenna and a single mini card slot, this reference design eliminates the need for additional antennas or mini card slots to the system.