Opening the Door for Development of Applications Based on AL4000 WUSB Chipset
Austin, Texas, August 24, 2005– Alereon, a leading fabless semiconductor company developing wireless solutions for the Ultrawideband (UWB) and Wireless USB (W-USB) markets, announced today the release of the Alereon AL4000-SDK Software Developer's Kit. The kit includes all of the software tools required to begin applications development for Alereon's AL4000 Wireless USB chipset: a driver, 'soft' MAC emulator, sample applications and complete documentation. Using the kit, developers are able to begin generating W-USB enabled applications before hardware becomes available later this year.
The AL4000-SDK was designed for ease of portability to the variety of PC peripheral and portable consumer products which will benefit from W-USB. Typical applications include wireless docking stations, MP3 players, cell phones, digital still cameras and photo printers. The AL4000 SDK includes both a standard Wireless USB device and Alereon's innovative Wireless-on-the-GoTM, which enables an Alereon-based solution to establish a connection with any other Wireless USB compliant device.
"The introduction of the AL4000 – SDK is an important step for developers," said Eric Broockman, CEO of Alereon. "Having tools available just prior to silicon allows our customers to begin their software development and be ready to ramp their designs quickly as silicon soon becomes available."
Alereon conducted extensive analysis of USB applications in developing the SDK's API. The result is an SDK which makes it easy for anyone familiar with USB, or wishing to port current USB applications to W-USB, to do so with a minimum of effort. The SDK also includes an innovative soft MAC emulator, allowing developers to write and test a true W-USB application in a controlled and repeatable environment that ostensibly will behave the way a W-USB MAC will behave in real usage scenarios.
The AL4000-SDK requires a PC-style x86 based hardware platform, Red Hat Fedora Core 3 Linux, and a gcc v3.4.2 Compiler. The AL4000 family of products will ultimately include the AL4100 Analog Front End integrated circuit, AL4200 BaseBand Processor, the AL4300 WirelessUSB MAC/BBP, and the AL4101-EVB WiMedia PHY Evaluation Board. Each of these products will be released in the coming months before the end of the year.
About Alereon, Inc.
Alereon, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company providing complete solutions for wireless USB/ MultiBand OFDM ultrawideband (UWB) applications. A technology pioneer, Alereon holds the greatest number of UWB patents, was first to demonstrate an entirely in-house designed UWB platform, co-founded the MultiBand OFDM Alliance (MBOA) and WiMedia Alliance, and is participating in the development of a wireless USB standard. Alereon's products promise to replace the complex tangle of wiring used to interconnect today's consumer electronics, computer peripheral, and mobile devices with high-bandwidth, low-power, low-cost wireless links. Further information is available on the company's website: www.alereon.com.
