Intersil Premieres 802.11g, Video Next Week

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The Comdex show used to mean big booths with lots to see for all the paid attendees. However, not all the big names setup for the public, especially these days. For example, Intersil of Irvine, CA, will be at the show, but only in a private suite to meet with vendors, partners, and the press. It’s there they plan to show off a couple of firsts.

One of Intersil’s demos will be with video-over-IP company ViXS Systems, coupling the latter’s PRISM Indigo 802.11a chipset with the ViXS XCode video Quality of Service (QoS) processor technology. The XCode works above the network layer to adjust video to fit the bandwidth present on a wireless (or wired) client.

The video demo will consist of multiple video streams transmitting from a residential gateway device, sending broadcast-quality video to multiple clients on laptops, PDAs, and flat-panel plasma televisions. The XCode in the gateway uses triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES) or Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption to secure streams.

According to Wendell Smith, Director of Product Marketing at ViXS, “The client can choose which movie it wants to see and with the Quality of Service, video quality is maintained even if the client is moving around.”
He says that “It’s a validation that this video can be used across industry standard networks.”

Intersil’s big news for the show is having the first access point based on the draft specification for 802.11g, the 802.11b compatible WLAN technology that’s higher speed, up to 54Mbps.

The access point they’ll be demonstrating will use the Intersil PRISM GT chip for 802.11g support and the Ubicom’s IP2022 multiprotocol, programmable processor and software system-on-a-chip platform, which can also support other protocols, such as HomePNA, HomePlug, or Bluetooth. Versions of this access point from Ubicom are sampling with customers already. They plan to make reference designs for 802.11g access points and bridges in the first quarter of 2003.