GCT Semiconductor Shipping 
WLAN 802.11b Broadband Wireless Transceiver

New 2.4-GHz Design Enables Savings in Cost, Board Real Estate, and Time to Market

    GCT Semiconductor, Inc., a leading provider of radio frequency (RF) integrated circuits (ICs) for wireless devices, announced that, in addition to current shipments of 802.11b radio transceivers to numerous OEM and ODM customers in CardBus, GCT is gearing up to ship large volume for Mini PCI, USB applications. Focusing on initial customers in the Taiwan market, these RF radio shipments are based upon successful deployment of reference designs that incorporate GCT's GRF5101 2.4-GHz transceiver, plus power amplifier, and a baseband/media access controller (MAC) solution from the company's third-party partners.

    Designed for use in wireless local area network (WLAN) 802.11b systems, the GRF5101 transceiver has a direct conversion architecture and is manufactured using RF CMOS process. As a result, it is extremely cost efficient. Housed in a 32-PIN QFN 5x5mm(2) package, its design architecture allows the GRF5101 to eliminate the need for external components, such as a surface acoustic wave (SAW) filter, a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), and a loop filter.

    Because of the reduction in external components, this chip features the lowest bill of materials (BOM) of any currently available 802.11b transceivers. And, the reduced number of components also shortens design and test time, thereby improving time to market.

    "Low cost and high performance are major requirements for a transceiver used in 802.11b systems," observes Dr. Kyeongho Lee, President and CEO of GCT Semiconductor. "We are pleased to begin shipments of our GRF5101 transceiver, which offers our partners and customers the lowest cost /performance in the wireless market place.

    "The company plans to grow its market share with this device and will launch the GRF5103 802.11b/g dual-mode WLAN chip later this month. These products will enable us to rapidly achieve a leadership position in this highly competitive wireless LAN market," Lee adds.

    Engineering samples of the dual-mode GRF5103 are available now. With a 40-pin QFN 6x6mm(2) package, this new chip uses the same RF CMOS process and ZIF architecture as the GRF5101, which enables a cost-effective 802.11g solution.

By Robert Hoskins

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