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Atmel Announces 802.11b Media Access Controller (MAC) with Integrated Baseband for Wireless Applications
SAN JOSE, CA - AtmelR Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML)
released today three new parts to its family of Wireless LAN products. This
family, called Fast-VirtualNetT, are single chip baseband Media Access
Controllers (MAC) supporting three popular system interfaces: PCMCIA or
Compact Flash (AT76C504), USB (AT76C505) and PCI or mini-PCI (AT76C506).
The fast-VirtualNet family provides a wireless interface following the IEEE
802.11b standard and supports standard data rates up to 11 Mbps. These
single-chip MAC+Baseband controllers include complete processing and
functionality in order to facilitate the Wi-FiT certification procedure for
Atmel customer companies.
The AT76C504/505/506 chips incorporate an ARM7TDMIR processor using a
sophisticated architecture to control the on-chip peripherals, manage the
internal memory and allocate data queue buffers as well as communicate
through the PCMCIA, USB or PCI buses. The architecture, now including an
integrated baseband controller is similar to previously designed MAC parts.
In addition to these features that are supported by Atmel's stand-alone MAC'
s, they also are available for the newer security standards or protocols
such as 802.1x, and TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol). The
Fast-VirtualNet family is provided together with various software drivers
such as Win98/2000/Me, WinXP, NT 4.0, Windows CE/PocketPC and Linux. For
all OS's where WHQL certification exists, the drivers provided from Atmel to
Customer Companies are in a WHQL certifiable state.
These devices have a seamless interface to the RF Micro DevicesT (RFMD)
front-end chipset. Together with earlier reference designs, they retain all
the key features and benefits of the previous family of products adding a
lower pin count, an even more competitive Bill of Material (BOM) and more
reliability and robustness due to the simplicity of the system and software.
The products are being well received into the market with design wins with
major OEM's, ODM's and Tier 1 companies. These designs will be shipping by
the end of the year in applications such as printers, PDA's, calculators and
many more.
Atmel's Product Marketing Director Richard Bisset stated, " Atmel's MAC plus
baseband combinations parts have provided a level of integration that has
allowed our customers a path to higher performance, lower cost and lower
power consumption. Our devices along with the RFMD radio chipset also allow
a very small footprint. This is very important when doing designs like
compact flash cards, mini-PCI cards and especially embedded WLAN modules.
Atmel's roadmap also continues to show our customers a higher level of
integration and feature set, allowing our customers to position themselves
for the next generation WLAN products to come "
About Atmel
Founded in 1984, Atmel Corporation is headquartered in San Jose, California
with manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe. Atmel designs,
manufactures and markets worldwide, advanced logic, mixed-signal,
nonvolatile memory and RF semiconductors. Atmel is also a leading provider
of system-level integration semiconductor solutions using CMOS, BiCMOS,
SiGe, and high-voltage BCDMOS process technologies.
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