HDTV Reviews

Metalink, a provider of high-performance wireless and wireline broadband communication silicon solutions, today announced that it will demonstrate its WLANPlus(TM) chipset, a technology based on the emerging 802.11n standard, with unique capabilities for wireless multimedia distribution, at Interop Japan in Tokyo, June 5-9, 2006, at booth #4U22.

The demonstrations will feature the delivery of high-definition television (HDTV) over wireless LAN, at wire line quality, using Metalink’s WLANPlus technology. WLANPlus is an advanced Wireless Local Area Networking (WLAN) technology, designed to enable high-throughput, rich-content, quality-critical applications. Targeted at the emerging 802.11n standard, WLANPlus introduces a significant increase in WLAN throughput and range over 802.11a or 802.11g. WLANPlus addresses the growing need for wireless A/V streaming and high-speed data. Exhibiting breakthrough data rates in true indoor environments, WLANPlus is suitable for products and services that require guaranteed performance and large bandwidth, while supporting WiFi legacy interoperability. This solution provides an optimal high-throughput wireless interface for various consumer electronics products such as Residential Gateways, DTV, HDTV, Set Top Boxes, Media Adaptors and Digital Video Recorders (DVR).
About WLANPlus(tm)

The WLANPlus family consists of the company’s MtW8170 baseband device and the MtW8150 radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC). A combination of features enables Metalink’s WLANPlus family to deliver multiple HDTV streams to any location within a radius of 100 feet, while maintaining full QoS performance. Innovative packet-aggregation techniques boost media access control (MAC) efficiency with double the effective throughput of other solutions. The inclusion of 2×3 real Multiple-In Multiple-Out (real MIMO) technology further improves throughput and QoS, and the use of sophisticated channel-bonding and antenna-loading techniques in the 5 GHz frequency band provide critical additional video-distribution performance.

The WLANPlus chipset also includes a full implementation of an integrated lower and upper MAC, reducing dramatically the required processing power and memory allocation from the host application processor. This simplifies the integration with consumer electronics devices and reduces the total product cost. Additionally, Advanced Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) forward error-correction (FEC) coding significantly boosts coverage range and signal robustness as compared to previous approaches. The chipset also fully supports 802.11i security features and the 802.11e QoS standard, both of which are critical for high-priority voice and video services.