Article Tools

• 

Ralink Technology has announced the industry's longest-range Wi-Fi chipset for the design of draft-802.11n wireless local area network products. The RT2800 chipset doubles the range of high-performance wireless systems and thereby eliminates reception shadows in homes, offices and citywide networks. The long-range reception is made possible by patented, low-noise circuitry that pinpoints and recovers the high-speed 802.11n streams of data.

The new chipset can be used to design routers for homes, businesses and citywide networks. It can also be used in the design of desktop computers, laptops, printers, networks storage systems, media servers, projectors, televisions set-top boxes, etc.

The 802.11n standard offers up to six times the performance of the 802.11g Wi-Fi standard that is widely used today. The 802.11n data throughput is greater than 180 Mbps with actual connection speeds of 300 Mbps to accommodate protocol overhead.

The 802.11n standard is currently in a draft status, however, designs are under way and end-user products are entering the market in anticipation of final approval. The Ralink chipset is designed so that changes to the draft-802.11n can be installed into end-user products via a software upgrade.

The RT2800 chipset supports industry-standard interfaces including PCI, MiniPCI, CardBus, USB 2.0, PCIe and MiniCard. The chipset is fully backward compatible with the existing industry wireless standards such as 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g.

The USB 2.0 version of the Ralink chipset has a patented antenna that is an industry first because it is contained inside a small housing that enables the entire draft-802.11n design to fit inside the small footprint of a USB package. The USB 2.0 chipset is also the first draft-802.11n solution to offer its software driver in optional onboard flash memory instead of on a CD-ROM disk. This gives the end-use a true plug-and-play product because the driver is uploaded into the computer through the USB connector.