News & Events
Intersil's PRISM Nitro™ Provides The Industry's First 802.11g-compliant Enhanced Throughput Mode For 802.11g – Delivering 3x Performance Increase in Mixed-Mode Networks
-- Intersil's new Nitro technology turbo-charges 802.11g systems while increasing performance in mixed 802.11b and 802.11g wireless networks~-- Completely standards-based approach
MILPITAS, CA, April 15, 2003 Intersil Corporation (NASDAQ: ISIL), a world leader in the design and manufacture of high performance analog and wireless networking solutions, today announced a new WLAN software solution that improves 802.11g throughput by over 3x. PRISM Nitro technology is fully IEEE 802.11g (draft standard 7.1) compliant, and uses prioritization algorithms and enhanced protection mechanisms to significantly increase pure 802.11g as well as mixed-mode network performance.
This is the first solution for turbo charging 802.11g systems, and most notably, its done in a way that is fully compliant with the 802.11 standards. PRISM Nitro provides up to 50% greater throughput performance in homogenous 802.11g networks, said Larry Ciaccia, vice president and general manager for Intersils Wireless Networking Products Group. We are firm believers in standards-based wireless solutions as opposed to proprietary approaches that only work with a limited set of hardware and are generally problematic for users and the industry as a whole. Our customers are very excited about PRISM Nitro and we expect to begin deliveries with this technology within the current quarter.
The new PRISM Nitro technology is applicable to PRISM GT and PRISM Duette products, which are fully compatible with any 802.11g-compliant products. PRISM Nitro technology also enhances overall system performance when used in an environment with both 802.11b and 802.11g clients present. Moving to higher data rates while remaining fully standards compliant, ensuring full backwards compatibility and interoperability with other standards-compliant brands is one of our key priorities, Ciaccia continued. With PRISM Nitro, our studies show up to a 3x improvement in performance for 802.11g clients operating in mixed-mode wireless networks. We feel PRISM Nitro is an exciting innovation, allowing us to deliver on the high speed promise of 802.11g in real-world environments.
Initial testing indicates up to a 3x performance improvement in worst-case wireless networking systems. Such systems would be made up of predominantly 802.11b clients and access points with just a few 802.11g nodes. In such a mixed-mode environment, and without PRISM Nitro technology, the 802.11g clients would suffer a dramatic slowdown in effective data rates. Some solutions on the market today do not exhibit the ability to support even the minimum protection mechanisms required by the latest 802.11g draft standard. These systems allow .11b and .11g radios to transmit packets without mutual awareness. This causes collisions, transmission errors and resultant retries that degrade overall system performance. This problem is addressed in the current 802.11g draft standard, which incorporates protection mechanisms that effectively control the traffic over the network. PRISM Nitro technology from Intersil not only meets the current 802.11g requirements but goes a step further. By adding prioritization algorithms to the required protection mechanisms, an entirely new level of network performance is achieved.
PRISM Nitro technology is a firmware upgrade that will become part of Intersils SingleSource Driver suite. The SingleSource Driver is a complete driver package that supports all Intersil WLAN high-rate solutions (PRISM GT and PRISM Duette client and AP solutions). PRISM Nitro is different from other solutions: its not proprietary and doesnt require a specific combination of clients and access points. In fact, PRISM Nitro is designed to work in conjunction with any 802.11g draft compliant solution and the huge installed base of 802.11b systems.
PRISM Nitros effective data rate increase of up to 50 percent makes it an ideal solution for high-bandwidth enterprise applications and home networking applications such as multi-channel CD-quality audio and DVD-quality video streaming. The added benefit of increased performance in a mixed-mode environment enables .11b and .11g clients in the same network to interoperate much more efficiently. The .11g clients will now have sufficient bandwidth to stream video and take advantage of the higher total speed while .11b clients are present.
PRISM Security, Backward Compatibility, Flexibility
- Intersil was the first in the industry to deploy WPA and provides the worlds most secure wireless link, enabled by WPA, CCX, TLS, TTLS, MD5, LEAP, and future-proofed support for 802.11i security, 802.11e QoS, and other IEEE enhancements.
- Intersils PRISM GT is a fully backward compatible 802.11g solution due to its enhanced protection mechanisms; it is also the clear industry leader in range and throughput.
- PRISM Duette is the most robust dual-band solution on the market and began shipping in Q1 of this year. Enhanced Intersil WLAN features are enabled by simple software upgrades due to the level of flexibility and pre-embedded silicon features on the PRISM platform.
Intersil Corporation is a global semiconductor leader in the design and manufacture of high performance analog and wireless networking solutions. Intersil’s product portfolios address four fast growing markets – flat panel displays, optical storage (CD and DVD recordable), power management and wireless networking. Intersil brings added customer value in providing complete silicon, software and reference design solutions to new products that enhance the computing experience for people wherever they live, work or travel. For more information about Intersil or to find out how to become a member of our winning team, visit the company's web site and career page at: www.intersil.com.
This release may include "forward looking statements" that are subject to risks and uncertainties. For information identifying economic, political, climatic, currency, regulatory, technological, competitive and some other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements, see Intersil’s Safe Harbor Forward Looking Statement disclaimer found at http://www.intersil.com/legal.asp, as well as Intersil’s SEC filings as updated from time to time, found at http://www.sec.gov. PRISM is a registered trademark and PRISM GT, PRISM Duette, PRISM Nitro and SingleSource are trademarks of Intersil Americas Inc. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
