Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Yakum, Israel; and Taipei, Taiwan:
Royal Philips Electronics reached agreement with Metalink for use of its high-speed 802.11n 5GHz WiFi solution in Philips Connected Home semiconductor solutions. The venture allows Philips to offer solutions for wireless high-definition (HD) content distribution at speeds five to 10 times faster than current wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g technologies.
Based on the 802.11n WiFi standard, Metalink's wireless solution will provide connections for Philips TV, set-top-box (STB), and digital-media-adapter (DMA) system reference designs to ensure reliable in-home transport of HD video. This, says Philips, facilitates a truly connected home in which consumers will be able to connect to information and entertainment services from IP, terrestrial, cable, and satellite providers anytime and anywhere.
Featuring MIMO technology adopted by the 802.11n standardisation, Metalink's WLANPlus chip set is able to deliver multiple HDTV streams to any location within a radius of 100 ft. in the 5GHz frequency band.
"We believe that in 2007, driven by the adoption of the 802.11n standard, WiFi chip sets will be widely used by consumer electronics manufacturers for products such as HDTV displays and DVRs," says Philip Solis, senior analyst at ABI Research. "We expect the number of WiFi ICs sold into consumer electronics to grow from 6.6 million units in 2004 to over 70 million units in 2007."