Quantenna launches 4x4 MIMO wireless video bridge design

Quantenna Communications, Inc., today announced the availability of a complete reference design to help customers accelerate product development using the Quantenna Full-11n chipset. The Quantenna Full-11n device is the industry's first to include all industry-standard 802.11n features for reliable transmission of high-definition television (HDTV) and 1080p video content, built-in 4x4 MIMO capabilities, adaptive digital beamforming, and wireless channel monitoring and optimization mechanisms.

Until the industry developed advanced image processing technologies in the latest 802.11n specification, such as 4x4 MIMO and digital beamforming, wireless home entertainment solutions were not available on the market. "Quantenna has achieved an important industry milestone by integrating all the key IEEE 802.11n features required for today's video applications into a reference design while ensuring backward compatibility with Wi-Fi products that are already in use by tens of millions of people around the world," said Craig Mathias, principal at mobile and wireless technology consultancy Farpoint Group. "Quantenna Full-11n components enable the next generation of wireless LAN products to deliver the highest resolution Full HD video content wirelessly to any corner of the home with both reliability and performance."

Quantenna's Full-11n components meet the "Gold Standard" top standard for entertainment wireless networks. The components can provide up to 4 flawless high-definition video streams, support transmission rates of more than 100 Mbps, transmission distances of more than 100 feet, and ensure that data transmission through near-zero packet error rate (PER) maintains close to 100% performance, overcoming common problems in most residential environments, such as various signal interference and reception dead spots.

“Quantenna Full-11n wireless networking products will be the first of their kind to deliver the reliability necessary to support whole-home Wi-Fi networking and video streaming,” said David French, CEO of Quantenna. “Our pioneering products deliver increasingly important capabilities for services and home entertainment, including ultra-low system latency, multiplayer online gaming, and multi-channel video at resolutions up to Full HD and 1080p.”

Technical Details

The Quantenna wireless AV bridge reference design uses its QHS600 device, which leverages a multi-core processor architecture to deliver industry-leading data rates to drive 4x4 MIMO radio/transceiver, adaptive digital beamforming, and channel monitoring and optimization functions.

Quantenna's QHS600 wireless AV bridge reference design delivers five times the range of other 802.11n solutions in the 5GHz band, ensuring ultra-low system latency to support real-time applications, such as a two-way game controller for online gaming. Using an integrated DSP engine that supports higher-level security accelerators, the design ensures content and privacy without sacrificing performance. In addition, Quantenna's versatile features provide an easy setup process, including automatic detection of bridges and access points and bridge mode; when a new device is added to the network, the setup process can be completed through the single-button operation of Wi-Fi Protected Setup, plus pre-configured security mechanisms.

Product Supply Schedule

The QHS600 Wireless AV Bridge Reference Kit is available now and includes an evaluation board and cables that connect to an external controller via Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, or USB 2.0 ports. The kit also includes a complete software development kit (SDK) that builds complete network and device discovery/connection capabilities for 802.11n-capable wireless AV bridge modules. In addition, Quantenna and LitePoint have collaborated to provide a professional wireless RF (RF) AV transmission calibration and performance characterization software test suite with an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI).