UWB chipset claims world's highest datarate

A comprehensive test of UWB products, conducted by octoScope, showed CWave's 1.35Gbit/s over-the-air signalling rate delivering 890Mbit/s application layer throughput.

The recently released Pulse-Link CWave UWB chipset has been validated in independent testing to have the world's highest datarate for wireless networking.

A comprehensive test of UWB products, conducted by octoScope, showed CWave's 1.35Gbit/s over-the-air signalling rate delivering 890Mbit/s application layer throughput.

CWave performance was 15 to 20 times greater than all other wireless UWB products measured in the test, the best of which peaked at around 50Mbit/s at close range.

"Pulse-Link's CWave technology has delivered on the promise of UWB - HD video distribution", stated Fanny Mlinarsky, President of octoScope, in her report.

"With over 500Mbit/s of wireless and coaxial throughput and a powerful QoS enabled MAC capable of controlled and predictable performance over multiple media in the house, CWave appears to be the clear technical leader in home networking and is well positioned to emerge as the 21st century architecture for full-home multimedia connectivity".

Results of wireless range were also impressive in the octoScope testing, which reported: "The CWave throughput held at around 500Mbit/s at up to 2.4m range".

"CWave sustained throughput of 115Mbit/s up to 12m, at which point we ran out of space in the test facility".

The CWave chipset also measured sustained TCP/IP throughputs of 500Mbit/s across 137m of coaxial cable.

"We can truly say that we currently have the fastest commercially available wireless networking chipset on the planet", states John Santhoff, Pulse-Link Founder and CTO.

"The peak measured application layer throughput of 890Mbit/s represents an unprecedented breakthrough in wireless communications, not just UWB".

Quality of service (QoS) and high-datarate performance are necessary for whole-home high definition video distribution.

Devices enabled with the CWave UWB chipset allow consumers to access high-bandwidth HD content from entertainment source devices in one room and display it on any HDTV in the house, utilising the home's existing coax cabling.

Pulse-Link's CWave UWB wireless solution reduces the "rat's nest" of connector wires behind entertainment systems, enabling clean installation of wall-mounted flat-panel displays anywhere in the room.

The HDMI extender enables longer-range, secure wireless connectivity between the HDTV display and multiple entertainment source devices such as set-top boxes, video game consoles, DVRs, Blu-ray DVD and HD DVD players.

Pulse-LINK's CWave 802.15.3b MAC was designed from the ground up to support the QoS demands of isochronous streaming of audio, HD video and high-datarate digital networking across all available PHY transports media within the home.

"Architecturally, CWave appears to offer a significant advantage over the status quo of video transport products requiring disparate MACs to support different media", stated Mlinarsky.

Pulse-Link's CWave technology was the only UWB device capable of multistream HD video transport in the tests and the only device supporting coaxial cabling in addition to wireless.

"There are a lot of marketing claims floating around in the pursuit of High Definition multimedia networking and it is sometimes hard to know what to believe".

"We welcomed the opportunity to participate in this independent testing as a means of validating the credibility of our technology", states Bruce Watkins, Pulse-Link President/COO and cofounder.

"And, just as the entire UWB industry is at a starting point and continuing to improve, our performance will definitely improve".

"We see a relatively straightforward roadmap to doubling performance at such time as market requirements dictate".

"This is just the beginning for a superior technology that delivers today and can continue to scale with the demands of tomorrow".

CWave high-volume commercial chipsets are available now and the company is introducing reference design kits for its CWave UWB wireless HDMI, HDMI-over-coax, ethernet-over-Coax and 1394-over-coax solutions.

The RDKs are low cost, small form factor, production ready reference designs, enabling OEM customers quick market entry.

The UWB performance test was co-ordinated by industry expert Fanny Mlinarsky, a highly regarded consultant with more than 24 years of senior R and D expertise in wireless technologies.

Mlinarsky is President of octoScope, a Boston area consultancy.

She is also the founder of Azimuth Systems, a test equipment company specialising in wireless technologies.

In August, she published a three-part analysis of IEEE802.11n systems: "Testing Draft IEEE802.11n systems: Not all 'n' is created equal".

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