Airoha Technology Corp., a leading fabless in designing high performance, cost-effective and highly integrated RF/mixed signal Integrated Circuit (IC), after successfully shipping in volume of his Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11 a/b/g) RF ICs, announced the launching of world’s most integrated 802.11n MIMO (Multi-Input, Multi-Output) RF IC, called AL8160.

The AL8160 is a single-chip, single band (2.4 to 2.5GHz) 802.11n transceiver with two Transmitters and three Receivers (2T3R) in a 8mm x 8mm package. AL8160 is world’s first and only 11n RF IC which integrates Power Amplifiers (PAs), just like Airoha has achieved industry’s first and only 802.11a/b/g RF IC with PA. Besides the two embedded PAs, AL8160 also integrates three Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs), Voltage Control Oscillator (VCO), Synthesizer, Loop filters and Baluns. Compare with existing draft-n/Pre-n chipsets, which need external PAs and even LNAs as well as associated bulky matching components, AL8160 has the lowest component count and, as a result, it reduces 80% of the external Bill Of Material (BOM) cost and 60% Print Circuit Board (PCB) area.

“With the MIMO architecture and other enhanced technologies, 802.11n is expected to improve the range and throughput significantly than old 802.11x technologies,” Michael Lu, CEO of Airoha, said. “but this could only be achieved with a high performance 11n RF IC, which is much more challenging than before.” Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) is the key performance index for 11n RF IC. “With the receive EVM is only -36dB and the transmit EVM is only -29dB (with the embedded PA),” Michael said. “AL8160 has set a new industry record in performance and is guaranteed to provide the best range and throughput with our Baseband partners.”

Based on iSuppli’s report, the shipment of 802.11n chipsets will grow up to 50 million in 2008, and over 100 million in 2008. Besides, Intel has put 802.11n into its next generation Centrino platform, i.e. Santa Rosa, and Notebook supplier like Apple, Lenovo and Sony have all decided to bundle 802.11n with their notebooks. This market will be further stimulated with the launch of Arioha’s AL8160 because it shortens the gap in cost between 802.11a/g and 802.11n and makes 802.11n products more affordable to end customers.

AL8160 is sampling now and will be available in Q2 2008 with Airoha’s baseband partners.