Ellipsis Optimizes WLAN Technology for Mobile Devices; SoC-Embeddable WLAN Solutions With Low Gate Count, Minimum Power Consumption.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 9, 2002

Ellipsis Digital Systems Inc., a leading semiconductor company that develops integrated silicon and software solutions for broadband communications systems, announced its family of WLAN solutions that are designed to address the specific needs of OEMS desiring to incorporate WLAN functionality into mobile devices, such as cell phones, PDAs and laptops.

As acceptance and deployment of WLAN technology continues to boom, its natural evolution will be to expand into mobile applications.

"WLAN is a great complementary technology," stated Carter Horney of Forward Concepts. "We see it as an enabling technology with potential for much larger adoption into mobile devices, such as cell phones, PDAs and laptops." According to a recent Forward Concepts' WLAN report, "the WLAN systems market will exceed $9 billion in 2005" and "the market for embedded WLANs, as built-in (rather than plug-in) features for laptop computers, Webpads, PDAs, pocket PCs, and even cell phones ... is projected to eclipse both home and enterprise markets by 2005."

"The requirements of mobile devices are unique," stated Don Levy, Ellipsis chief business officer. "Ellipsis' WLAN solutions are the only WLAN solutions designed from the ground up to meet the specific needs of OEMS wanting to incorporate WLAN technology into their mobile devices."

Ellipsis' E-1100 802.11a and E-2000 Multi-standard 802.11a/b/g WLAN solutions are SoC-embeddable, have the lowest gate count, deliver a 50 percent reduction in power consumption compared to other WLAN solutions and are interoperable with other systems.

Employing Innovative Technology to Achieve Greater Mobile Performance

"Hassle-free integration, design flexibility and production cost are all critical issues to OEMs," explained Erhan Ercan, director of Marketing at Ellipsis. "However, to effectively address the needs of the mobile market, a WLAN solution must be embeddable at both the silicon level and at the system level, have a low gate count and require minimum power. At Ellipsis, we offer the only SoC-embeddable solution that is flexible, fully integrated, cost-effective and optimized for mobile devices."

At the silicon level, Ellipsis ensures a smooth back-end development process through exhaustive "verification before instantiation(SM)" testing. This testing also eliminates any timing closure issues that are normally handled during back-end design. The Ellipsis solution not only simplifies the process, but gives customers greater flexibility when selecting their preferred silicon process or migrating from one process to another.

At the system level, instead of assuming the WLAN solution will function as a stand-alone device, as most providers do, Ellipsis has designed its solutions from their inception to be embedded within other systems, both in terms of sharing hardware where possible, and smooth interoperation between systems.

Unlike WLAN solutions that require multiple chips to accommodate each standard, Ellipsis' E-2000 multi-standard 802.11a/b/g solution is designed to be implemented as a single chip (plus radio front end) that can accommodate all WLAN standards. By employing its innovative Die-Level Sharing technology, Ellipsis can provide this multiple-standard functionality with a gate count that is substantially less than competitors' single standard products. This allows OEMs to build a single multi-standard WLAN ASIC that is so powerful, yet so cost-effective, it can be used for both single and multi-standard products -- a huge advantage for OEMs as it greatly simplifies production issues.

Ellipsis' WLAN solutions offer a variety of design innovations that deliver unmatched system flexibility, efficiency and performance, and that make them ideal for mobile applications. Among these innovations is Ellipsis' Protocol Driven Power Management technology. This smart management technique enables adaptive trade-offs between throughput and power consumption to meet user specific requirements. If minimizing power consumption is critical at any given time, the Ellipsis system adaptively ratchets-down to provide the minimum throughput needed, substantially reducing power consumption. If the need for throughput outweighs the need for conserving power, the Ellipsis system utilizes its adaptive calibration technique to optimize system performance, efficiently using power while maximizing speed. These, combined with other technical innovations, result in efficient, highly integrated WLAN solutions that are optimized for mobile devices.

About Ellipsis Digital Systems

Founded in 2000, Ellipsis Digital Systems develops integrated silicon and software platforms for broadband communications systems. Leveraging its innovative ISiS(TM) (Integrated Silicon & Software) Platform and proprietary Matched Instruction Set Processor (MISP(TM)) architecture, Ellipsis delivers complete, fully optimized solutions with the lowest gate count, dramatically reduced power consumption, extended operational range and superior performance. Ellipsis is privately held and is based in Carlsbad. For more information, please visit www.ellipsisdigital.com.