Ralink shows longest-range draft-802.11n chipset

Ralink Technology has already shipped some 45 million WiFi chipsets, but says it is especially proud of its latest addition, which it claims to be the industry's longest range draft-802.11n WiFi chipset. The company says that the RT2800 chipset doubles the range of high-performance wireless systems, eliminating reception shadows in homes, offices, and metro networks. The chip achieves this long-range reception through a patented, low-noise circuitry which pinpoints and recovers the high-speed 802.11n streams of data.

The 802.11n standard is still in draft status, but designs are underway and end-user products are entering the market. The company says that the chipset is designed so that it is software-upgradeable to changes to the draft-802.11n. Note that the USB 2.0 version of the Ralink chipset has a patented antenna which, the company says, is an industry first because it is contained inside a small housing that enables the entire draft-802.11n design to fit inside the small footprint of a USB package. The USB 2.0 chipset is also the first draft-802.11n solution to offer its software driver in optional onboard flash memory instead of on a CD-ROM disk.

For more on the RT2800:
- see this press release