Philips brings HD Wireless capability to living room

Royal Philips Electronics today announced the signing of an agreement with Metalink Ltd. for use of its high-speed 802.11n 5GHz WiFi solution in Philips Connected Home semiconductor solutions. The agreement allows Philips to offer complete solutions for wireless high definition (HD) content distribution at speeds five to 10 times faster than currently available wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g technologies. Based on the 802.11n WiFi standard, Metalink’s wireless solution will provide connections for Philips advanced TV, set-top boxes (STB) and digital media adapter (DMA) system reference designs to ensure reliable in-home transport of high definition video. This facilitates a truly Connected Home where consumers will be able to connect to information and entertainment services from IP, terrestrial, cable and satellite providers anytime and anywhere. Featuring MIMO technology adopted by the 802.11n standardization, Metalink’s WLANPlus chipset can deliver multiple HDTV streams to any location within a radius of 100 feet in the 5GHz frequency band. “We believe that in 2007, driven by the adoption of the 802.11n standard, WiFi chipsets will be widely used by consumer electronics manufacturers for products such as HDTV displays and DVRs,” said Philip Solis, senior analyst at ABI Research. “We expect the number of WiFi ICs sold into consumer electronics to grow from 6.6 million units in 2004 to over 70 million units in 2007.” [/TAGS]