  The Airgo Networks True MIMO™ Wireless Communications Technology is this issue’s Device Spotlight. Considered to be a breakthrough in wireless, Airgo’s MIMO OFDM is a front runner in the battle to be adopted as the foundation for the future IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi® standard (some have taken to referring to this as “802.11 pre-n”). Airgo Networks is first-to-market with this enhanced chipset, which is backwards-compatible with 802.11a/b/g standards. Airgo's True MIMO™ technology substantially improves range, rate, and capacity over previous 802.11 chipsets and is becoming widely adopted in the wireless router market. Due to these capabilities and trends, companies looking to design with 802.11-enabled products may wish to consider an Airgo-based architecture.
|
|
MIMO (which stands for Multiple Input, Multiple Output) technology sends information out over two or more spatially separated antennas, forming a multipath system. Multipath occurs when signals sent from a transmitter reflect off objects in the environment and take multiple paths to the receiver. Due to the occurrence of interference and fading in conventional radios, multipath was previously considered to be an impairment to signal transmission. Recently, however, researchers have shown that multipath can be exploited to multiplicatively increase the capacity of a radio system. Essentially, MIMO uses multiple paths to carry more information, which is separated on the receiving side using Airgo’s proprietary signal processing algorithms.
Airgo True MIMO™-based products are the first and only wireless LAN solutions to deliver 108Mbps in a single 20MHz channel. Airgo products also offer advanced security features like rogue access point detection and AES encryption built in. Airgo-enabled products provide security even tighter than a “wired” connection. Airgo and its innovative True MIMO™ wireless chipset technology have recently been recognized with multiple industry awards including PC Magazine's Technical Excellence Award, EE Times' Best in Class Development Team and MobileTrax's Mobility Award for 2005.
Nuvation was among the first firms to design with Airgo chipsets. We found Airgo to be an optimal fit for one of our clients who needed maximum range and throughput in their wireless product. Throughout the past year, Nuvation worked closely with Airgo to integrate their early-release hardware and firmware drivers into the design. Airgo’s support has been excellent, especially considering the leading-edge nature of their development environment and the number of large OEMs they have attracted. The product went on to win the prestigious Innovations award at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
Awards aside, we’ve consistently seen the Airgo network cards to outshine all other wireless LAN cards we’ve worked with. Around our building, the Airgo network always has the strongest signal strength and the best connection speeds. At CES, we streamed video between two cards at a distance of 800 feet. Now that’s what we call a hot technology!
|
