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To: M. Charles Swope who wrote (7385)	6/23/2000 5:42:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 12823

It seems entirely doable based on what they've posted at their Web site at alantro.com. The words that stands out below, however, are "intended" and "developing." From the site: Alantro Communications is developing the fastest, as well as the best performing wireless local area network (WLAN) chipset family on the market. Our products are intended to be IEEE 802.11-compliant (for Wi-Fi? certification by end customers) and extend beyond currently available solutions, offering additional value to customers through high levels of chip integration. Alantro?s technology was adopted as the "high-performance" segment of the new 11 Mbps, IEEE 802.11b wireless standard, ratified in September 1999. We are also developing a "double data rate" (22 Mbps) extension that is completely interoperable with existing WLAN networks. Recently, the IEEE 802.11 standards body formed a new study group to look into incorporating this Alantro proposal into the standard. This activity has garnered significant interest from the developer community. Alantro also specializes in the design and development of all types of Forward Error Control (FEC) and modulation/demodulation elements. Alantro?s founders are experts in leading-edge FEC technology, such as turbo codes. The company has significant expertise with both wired channels (such as coaxial cable or twisted-pair) and wireless channels (such as local area networks or satellite links). Additionally, Alantro has ASIC design and implementation proficiency to create highly-integrated, high-performance PHY chips and chip cores. The uncompromising goal of Alantro, and the common thread within our product development efforts, is to achieve optimal levels of physical transmission performance. Wireless Local Area Networks The increasing mobility of today?s lifestyle is largely due to the advent of wireless communications technology, and an explosion of new devices is rapidly taking advantage of this freedom. People can use wireless LAN technology to connect to the network at their office, or to create WLANs (with PCs, non-PC internet connections, and/or "smart" appliances) within their own homes. Alantro?s chips will provide the technology needed for devices to communicate with each other in a wireless network. To help drive broad market acceptance of WLAN products, Alantro is proud to be a founding member of the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA), an industry organization dedicated to the promotion and interoperability of IEEE 802.11b-based networks. Forward Error Control Forward error control allows the full capacity of a given communications channel to be approached. Since the late 1940?s, increasingly powerful FEC schemes have been discovered and implemented. However, more complex FEC algorithms have only recently become practical to implement into cost-sensitive commercial applications such as LANs. As the density of integrated circuits has increased, more gates, and therefore more complex algorithms, can now be fit onto smaller chips. Alantro?s leading-edge modulation/demodulation and FEC methods offer a measurable advantage versus other alternatives in the key areas of performance, size and noise margin. Alantro employs modulation/demodulation methods, such as adaptive equalization, digital timing/carrier recovery, and digital rate control, as well as FEC methodology such as Reed-Solomon coding, interleaving, and Viterbi decoding. In addition, Alantro is actively developing and deploying turbo codes into modern digital communications to further exploit the capacity channels of everything from hard disk drives to satellite links.

To: M. Charles Swope who wrote (7385)	6/23/2000 6:41:00 PM
From: Bernard Levy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi Charles: The focus of Alantro is the design of error correction modules for wireless LANs or DSL products which allow communication at close to the Shannon limit. The Chairman and co-founder, Chris Heegard, is a former Cornell professor, who is regarded as one of the top experts on turbo codes. It is surprising the company was bought by TXN given Cisco had provided a lot of the seed funding. The purchase price of $300M amounts to roughly $6M per employee. When compared to this price, CSCO bought Clarity Wireless at a bargain basement price. It's a good thing it is only paper that changes hands. Best regards, Bernard Levy