Wavesat has teamed with Texas Instruments to develop a miniature PCI module and reference design to push the use of WiMAX in the unlicensed 5.8GHz frequency band.
The Mini-PCI development platform is intended for the design of WiMAX-compliant wireless systems for the 5.8GHz unlicensed band. It uses Wavesat’s Evolutive WiMAX DM256 chip and TI’s RF silicon.
According to Vijay Dube, v-p marketing and business development for Wavesat: “Because 5.8GHz is an unlicensed frequency band, it can be rapidly deployed by wireless Internet service providers around the world and especially in North America, where it is the only WiMAX Forum profile currently deployable.”
The reference design can be used to develop both customer premises equipment (CPE) and basestation infrastructure.
See also: Electronics Weekly's roundup of content related to WiMax