Samsung: new wireless USB chips capable of 480Mbps max

Samsung Thursday announced its latest two-chip wireless USB solution capable of transmission speeds up to 480Mbps with an actual throughput rate of 200Mbps. The result is reportedly ten times more power efficient than 802.11g Wi-Fi.

The product is made up of two chips, S3C2680, a baseband processor with an ARM 9 core, built-in NAND flash controller, SD I/O, and two USB 2.0 PHYs; and S5M8311a, a separate RF transciever.

The chips can be deployed in SD cards, USB dongles, or embedded directly into consumer electronics. Samsung says the solution is especially suited for digital cameras and HD camcorders for high throughput local content sharing.

"The ability to handle wireless high-speed data transmission while consuming less power is a key requirement for many consumer electronic devices," said Yiwan Wong, vice president, System LSI marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Due to power/performance issues, previous generations of [Wireless USB] products were unable to meet the consumers' expectations. Samsung's new WUSB chipset delivers up to 480Mbps (Megabit per second) data transmission rate, at an average power consumption of less than 300mW. This level of power efficiency greatly increases the attractiveness of WUSB connectivity in consumer electronic and mobile applications."

Mass production of the chips is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2010.