Wavesat Announces Availability of WiMAX Mini-PCI Targeting Mass Market CPEs

Unique and Flexible Architecture Reduces Costs and Improves Performance

Montreal, Canada, September 19 2007 – Wavesat (www.wavesat.com), the first company to deliver a WiMAX Mini-PCI design to the wireless broadband industry in 2006, is now announcing availability of its second generation WiMAX Mini-PCI design targeting low cost mass market indoor and outdoor CPE.

Wavesat’s NP7256 mini-PCI design provides advanced WiMAX features such as support for UL subchannelization which significantly improves performance for indoor modems. 

Based on Wavesat’s latest Evolutive™ NP7256 ASIC, this new generation WiMAX Mini-PCI has been redesigned with fewer parts and advanced RF chipsets to substantially reduce overall size and BOM. Combined with Wavesat’s MAC software, it enables ODMs and OEMs to build small and extremely low cost subscriber units. The flexible architecture of the Mini-PCI will offer easy design upgradeability to WiMAX 802.16e.

NP7256 Mini-PCI Features:

• Complete WiMAX air interface (baseband PHY, real-time critical MAC and RF)
• Small footprint and low power consumption 
• Enhanced indoor reach through subchannelization on the uplink.
• Embedded encryption support permitting lower priced processors to be used in the CPE
  

“Near- to medium-term applications for WiMAX are driven by fixed and portable application services, CPE cost, and platform flexibility,” commented Frank Draper, Wavesat’s VP Strategic Development. ”Our WiMAX NP7256 Mini-PCI design offers OEMs and ODMs the opportunity to quickly develop a low BOM subscriber unit with minimum NRE investment and risk by using existing broadband CPE platform. As a market leader, Wavesat will continue to focus on enhancing current product portfolio to bring additional cost reduction, easy upgradeability and design flexibility to its unique architecture. “

Wavesat WiMAX Portfolio

Wavesat's award-winning and WiMAX Forum Certified™ WiMAX product portfolio supports both base stations and subscriber units for licensed and license-exempt radio frequencies. Wavesat provides a full-range of standards-based integrated circuits, software, and development platforms supporting IEEE 802.16-2004 and 802.16e-2005 standards.

Featuring the industry’s first WiMAX Mini-PCI card and chosen by ODMs and OEMs worldwide, Wavesat’s WiMAX portfolio provides effective wireless connectivity for a wide range of network sizes and coverage from urban to rural applications.

Wavesat provides solutions for each WiMAX market segment including:

• Fixed (access points, backhaul, DSL extensions) with 802.16-2004 OFDM Evolutive™ solutions
• Nomadic & Portable (fixed system to include high-speed connectivity for laptop and portable applications) with 802.16d+ OFDM Evolutive™ products
• Full mobility with 802.16e-2005 sOFDMA UMobile™ WiBro/WiMAX product family
  

About Wavesat

Wavesat is a privately held fabless semiconductor company developing WiMAX chipsets, software and reference designs, enabling OEMs and ODMs to be first to market with high performance and cost effective WiMAX compliant solutions. Featuring the first WiMAX Forum certified CPE design, Wavesat provides solutions for each WiMAX market segment from Fixed to Mobility. Please visit the company’s web site at www.wavesat.com.