Altair Semiconductor Samples Power-Efficient Mobile WiMAX Processor for Handheld Devices

(Product News, 13 Mar 2008)

Altair Semiconductor, a fabless chip company developing advanced mobile WiMAX semiconductors for handheld devices, has released the ALT2150 mobile WiMAX baseband processor, which is claimed to be the world's smallest and most power-efficient mobile WiMAX processor. The ALT2150 implements full WiMAX Forum Wave-2 physical (PHY) Layer and Media Access Control (MAC) functionality, and offers substantial performance enhancements beyond this profile.

The ALT2150 is the first in a family of chipsets from Altair developed to achieve excellent modem performance, while consuming a fraction of the power of any mobile WiMAX chipset available today. Altair's product strategy has an exclusive focus on battery-operated, handheld devices that impose very strict power consumption and size requirements on semiconductor content. Altair is the first and only mobile WiMAX chip company that developed a proprietary, highly programmable Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) processor (codenamed O2P), rather than choosing to integrate a conventional communications Digital Signal Processor (DSP).

"What we're seeing in the ALT2150 is truly revolutionary in terms of size, power consumption and cost," said Haig Sarkissian, principal consultant at WiMAX 20/20, an independent market research and consulting company focused solely on the emerging broadband wireless market. "Based on our assessment of the ALT2150's specifications, and after comparing it to comparable offerings, we believe that Altair is strategically positioned to bring a highly competitive mobile WiMAX processor solution to the marketplace."

Other key specifications for Altair's ALT2150 include:

- Patent pending Extreme Low Power (ELP) technology

- Power consumption figures of a complete Mobile WiMAX Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) solution, which includes an ALT2150, RF Transceiver, Power Amplifier and Power Management:
—10Mbps FTP download - 142mW
—1Mbps FTP upload - 125mW
—Streaming H.264 video - 81mW
—VoIP call - 98mW
—Standby current - <0.5mA

- Features Altair's proprietary Optimized OFDMA Processor (O2P) for excellent PHY performance, ultra-low power consumption and future proof algorithmic implementation

- Industry's highest performance MIMO decoder, supporting up to 64QAM Matrix-B decoding

- Built-in, patent pending solution for coexistence of WiMAX with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi

- Smallest package in the industry, 7x7mm low-profile Ball Grid Array

Click here for more information on Altair Semiconductor

Click here for more information on Altair Semiconductor's ALT2150