17th May , 2004

Fujitsu Microelectronics America and Wi-LAN Inc. announced their joint goal to produce the world’s first WiMAX Certified* broadband wireless system. System-on-Chip (SoC) engineering samples are planned for the fall of 2004, and the complete system is expected to be available for WiMAX Forum* conformance and interoperability testing in the first half of 2005.

“Fujitsu Microelectronics’ expertise in designing high-performance, highly integrated system-on-chip solutions that incorporate embedded processors and mixed signal technology will be instrumental in bringing WiMAX Certified broadband wireless products to economical mass deployment,” said Keith Horn, FMA’s vice president of marketing. “Together, Wi-LAN and FMA have all the skills required to develop broadband wireless SoC products that will lead the market in WiMAX Certified systems.”

“The timeline that Wi-LAN and FMA have set for first-to-market WiMAX Certified systems dovetails nicely with the WiMAX Forum’s timeline for certification and interoperability testing,” said Dr. Sayed-Amr El-Hamamsy, Wi-LAN’s president and CEO. “In spite of the hype about early equipment availability from other vendors, the fact is that there can be no certified products before WiMAX conformance specifications are established. The chairman of the WiMAX Forum 2-11GHz technical working group expects to complete conformance specifications in November 2004. We believe Wi-LAN is the only company that has commercially implemented 256 sub-carrier OFDM, which is the physical layer technology supported by the WiMAX Forum. This gives us confidence that our early 2005 LIBRA broadband wireless system that incorporates the Wi-LAN / FMA SoC will be the first system to be WiMAX Certified.”

The WiMAX Forum is a non-profit corporation formed to help promote and certify the compatibility and interoperability of BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) equipment. The Forum’s efforts are intended to help accelerate the introduction of standards-based broadband wireless equipment into the marketplace, speeding up last-mile broadband deployment worldwide. WiMAX Certified equipment is expected to provide up to 50-kilometers of range and allow users to receive broadband connectivity without requiring a direct line of sight with the base station. The equipment is also expected to provide shared data rates up to 70 Mbps, which is enough bandwidth to simultaneously support more than 60 businesses with T1-type connectivity and hundreds of homes with DSL-type connectivity with a single base station.