Wifi Revolution

Integated silicon solutions provider, Marvell, has readied a dual-band IEEE (News - Alert) 802.11n radio that integrates WiFi, Bluetooth and FM radios on a single chip. Labeled Avastar 88W8787, the manufacturer said that it is the first in the Avastar family to get WiFi (News - Alert) Direct certification for low-power embedded mobile applications. Other members to join the Avastar family will be announced soon, said the supplier.

WiFi Direct protocol eliminates the need for a traditional hot spot in many situations, establishing instead a high-performance, direct peer-to-peer network, capable of supporting consumers in all the ways they use handheld devices, including real-time content sharing and gaming, directly printing from handhelds, distributing video from a handheld to a big screen TV, and much more. Data transmissions are protected by WPA2-certified security protocols, featuring encryption algorithms considered fully secure.

Delivering high-performance, robust, and seamless connectivity for the always-on consumer and enterprise mobility, the integrated Avastar 88W8787 is aimed at applications like smartphones, tablets and other portable devices.

In a statement, said Weili Dai, Marvell’s (News - Alert) co-founder, in a press release, “The WiFi Direct certification fits in nicely with our vision of seamless communications across all devices, from the handheld to the wall mounted. We are proud to be enabling this wireless ecosystem by supporting the Wi-Fi Direct standard in our Avastar family and by working with device manufacturers to help them deliver a new generation of mobile devices to consumers worldwide.” 

Other highlights of Avastar 88W8787 include support up to 150 Mbps bit rate over the air with 40 MHz channels in both bands, best-in-class leakage current with up to 4x lower than existing solutions and 802.11h dynamic frequency selection (DFS) for detecting radar pulses when operating in the 5 GHz range.

Marvell said WiFi Direct certified Avastar 88W8787 evaluation kits are available and it also offers the technology as a software upgrade on existing and future WiFi products.