3x3 802.11n Access Point and Client Chips deliver more than 50 percent better Wi-Fi coverage with Beam Forming Technology

CUPERTINO, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — January 6, 2010 — Ralink Technology Corporation, a leading developer of high performance wireless solutions, today announced sample availability of the RT3883 SoC and RT3593 client chips, the industry’s first commercially available single chip 450Mbps 802.11n access point and station solutions with Beam Forming technology. The RT3883, featuring three dual band 2.4/5GHz radios, a 500MHz MIPS CPU, and a variety of connectivity interfaces, is the most advanced Wi-Fi Access Point/Router platform in the industry. The RT3593 is the most highly integrated 450Mbps client solution available on the market with an embedded media access controller, baseband processor, and three dual band 2.4/5GHz radios on a single chip. Both RT3883 and RT3593 chips incorporate Ralink’s high-performance radio and baseband architectures, delivering best-in-class Wi-Fi performance, low power consumption, and cost-effective price points.

The RT3883 and RT3593 chips are also the first commercially available 802.11n solutions which support the IEEE standard’s optional Beam Forming functionality. With Beam Forming technology, the RT3883 and RT3593 intelligently determine a receiver’s distance and location, control various transmission parameters, and optimize the Wi-Fi signals to maximize throughput, range, and reliability. This break-through technology enables superior Wi-Fi coverage, interference mitigation, and more reliable connections for data-centric and video-over-WiFi applications. The RT3883 and RT3593 are fully compliant with the IEEE’s optional 802.11n Explicit Beam Forming standard and also incorporate Ralink’s Implicit Beam Forming technology which improves performance even when communicating with legacy 802.11a/b/g or 802.11n devices that do not support the IEEE Beam Forming protocol.

The RT3883 includes a variety of connectivity options including two RGMII interfaces that can be used with a Gigabit Ethernet switch, a Cable or DSL modem, Powerline communications devices, or any other chip with an RGMII interface; two 480 Mbps USB 2.0 interfaces for consumer electronics or wireless storage applications; a PCI Express interface that enables “dual band concurrent” applications; and SPI, I2C and PCM interfaces for audio and VoIP applications. The RT3883 also includes hardware support for Network Address Translation (NAT) and other frame aggregation techniques that maximize wired-to-wireless routing performance.

“The widespread acceptance of 802.11n products has been driven by consumers who want high-performance data, reliable voice connections, and streaming High Definition (HD) video concurrently on their Wi-Fi networks. This has led to the rapid adoption of 802.11n as a key technology in both consumer and enterprise applications,” said Dr. Horen Chen, president of Ralink. “The proliferation of high quality digital photos, media servers, and Blu-Ray DVDs in homes is driving demand for greater Wi-Fi performance and coverage beyond 2-stream 802.11n, and Ralink’s RT3883 AP/Router system-on-a-chip and RT3593 PCIe chip deliver on this requirement,” Chen added.

In addition to the 450Mbps throughput and Beam Forming capabilities, the RT3883 and RT3593 incorporate a range of advanced features such as Maximum Likelihood Detection (MLD) and Adaptive Channel Estimation (ACE) to maximize performance in difficult indoor environments. These two new chips also incorporate Ralink Video Turbine™ technology, a combination of hardware and software enhancements that further optimize throughput, range, and reliability to support high definition video transmissions over Wi-Fi.

Hardware and Software design kits for the RT3883 and RT3593 were released to ODM partners in Q4 2009, and customer samples are now available. For more information please contact Ralink at Email Contact or make an appointment to visit us during CES 2010 in suite #2169 at the Las Vegas Hilton.

About Ralink Technology

Ralink Technology Corporation is a leading innovator and developer of wireless chipset solutions. Ralink products are recognized for the superior throughput, extended range, low-power consumption and consistent reliability required for Wi-Fi, mobile and embedded applications. These feature-rich chipsets have a high level of chip integration, enabling customers to build smaller and more sophisticated mobile wireless products cost-effectively. Ralink’s patented MIMObility™ technology extends Wi-Fi applications from traditional PC networking to a range of digital multimedia and handheld devices including cell phones, PDAs, cameras, print servers, HDTV and video game players. Ralink customers can look forward to continuous improvements in speed, bandwidth and reliability with IEEE 802.11n solutions for next-generation high-performance Wi-Fi. Ralink Technology was founded in 2001 with headquarters in Hsin-chu, Taiwan and an R&D center in Cupertino, California. For more information, visit Ralink at www.ralinktech.com

Ralink, Ralink Technology and MIMObility^TM are Ralink’s registered trademarks; all other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

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