Pulse~LINK, Inc., an ultrawideband (UWB) fabless semiconductor company, has unwrapped its first UWB radio for wireless LANs (WLANs). The release of its PLK23300-EVK evaluation kit is based on a new continuous-wave UWB architecture (Cwave UWB). This platform delivers wireless gigabit data rates at personal area network ranges and data rates capable of supporting multimedia and HDTV data streams at WLAN ranges.

The CWave UWB technology is different from that of multiband OFDM alliance (MBOA) and direct sequence-CDMA (DS-CDMA) forms of UWB presently pursued by other groups. (MBOA is backed by Intel, TI, Staccato Communications and others, and DS-CDMA is supported by Freescale and its partners.) With its CWave architecture, the developer can deliver significantly higher UWB data rates and provide the increased transmission range necessary for WLAN UWB communications.

"We are constantly asked if we are an MBOA or DS-UWB technology," states John Santhoff, Pulse~LINK founder and CTO. "We are neither, but have held off on public discussions of our CWave technology until now. We waited for the release of our development platforms so our technology could be demonstrated publicly with real-world hardware that clearly validates the performance advantages of our approach."

The unveiling of CWave UWB architecture comes exactly three years to the date of the FCC's initial ruling to allow commercial use of UWB.

The CWave UWB architecture is significantly less complex than other competing architectures, requiring 128 Fourier transforms that are frequency hopped over three separate "bands." It is also unlike traditional "impulse" UWB architectures used by DS-UWB. Instead, the CWave UWB signal derives from a continuous frequency waveform phase shifted to produce RF emissions that are filtered to meet the UWB regulatory mask. The CWave UWB architecture employs no analog mixers or local oscillators, no up-conversion or down-conversion and features a low-power, high-bandwidth ADC with dynamic range exceeding 40 dB, said the developer.

Variable spreading codes yield extremely high data rates at short range and can increase signal gain by more than 25 dB for longer transmission ranges at lower data rates--both of which are validated with PLK23300-EVK evaluation kits. This low-power, low complexity architecture easily translates to low-cost implementation in either CMOS or SiGe.

The company is making the PLK23300-EVK available to select strategic partners participating in the introduction of a specification alliance for CWave UWB.

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