Motorola Ventures, the venture capital arm of Motorola, has made a strategic investment in Appairent Technologies, a developer of wireless multimedia semiconductors based in Rochester, New York. Appairent Technologies was spun out from Eastman Kodak Company in January 2002. The company is working on embedded high-speed radio systems that take advantage of the IEEE 802.15.3 standard and work underway in Task Group 3a to enable wireless multimedia communication in consumer electronic and PC products. The strategic relationship with Motorola centers around the development of an ultrawideband (UWB) product by leveraging Appairent’s market leadership position in IEEE 802.15.3 Medium Access Control (MAC) development and Motorola’s leading UWB radio platform development. In addition, Appairent Technologies has received an investment from the Monroe Fund, which is managed by the Trillium Group. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.appairent.com
- In May 2003, Appairent Technologies demonstrated its IEEE 802.15.3 standard Transpairent radio development system technology at an industry conference. The company claims the Transpairent Radio is the first IEEE 802.15.3 compatible radio transceiver system. The device consists of an RF and digital/baseband IC and all the external components needed to implement a standardized IEEE 802.15.3-compatible radio transceiver system. It supports power management features and transmits data up to 100 meters. Applications could include residential gateways, DVD players, TVs, set-top boxes, audio systems and digital still cameras and digital camcorders.
- Dr. Robert F. Heile, the CTO of Appairent Technologies, serves as the Chairman of the newly formed IEEE 802.15.3a Task Group.
- In February, the FCC issued new rules to allow commercial use of UWB radios in 7500MHz of spectrum between 3.1GHz and 10.6GHz. Shortly following this ruling, the IEEE formed a standards committee, 802.15.3a, which is in the process of developing a standard specification for UWB for use in Personal Area Networks (PANs).
- A new WiMedia Alliance has been organized to guarantee interoperability between various manufacturers much the same way that the WiFi Alliance does for 802.11 wireless LAN. http://www.wimedia.org