Kaben Wireless Silicon releases high-performance frequency synthesizer for WiMAX applications

Low phase noise and spurs suitable for OFDM Applications

Ottawa, Ontario -- June 17, 2008 -- Kaben Wireless Silicon Inc., one of the industry's leading wireless semiconductor design companies, announced today that it has successfully produced a WiMax Fractional-N synthesizer in IBM 7WL process.

The Fractional-N synthesizer delivers a -116 dBc/Hz phase noise performance and -90 dBc spurious response at 6 GHz output. High phase noise and spurs can cause tremendous problems for system designers. Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) is a very tight requirement for OFDM systems such as WiMax. Phase noise causes a jitter in the EVM, whereas spurs cause EVM offsets. This leads to unacceptable packet error rates, or low data throughput rates.

“The ultra low phase noise, exceptional spurious performance and wide frequency range makes this on-chip synthesizer ideal for WiMax applications", said Seste Dell'Aera, Kaben's V.P. Marketing. "System designers can absolutely rely on the synthesizer not being the limiting technology in W-USB, Digital TV, Digital Audio and other OFDM applications.”

Kaben's Chief Scientist, Jim Wight, himself a specialist in OFDM said, "One major hurdle for WiMax designers is how to deal with EVM issues. Having a clean signal source is one of the critical components to designing a successful architecture."

Originally designed in the IBM 7WL process, the design can be ported to popular process technologies for any SoC applications. The synthesizer is available as a Silicon-proven IP product licensed for SoC integration or to manufacturers as a standalone part.

ABOUT KABEN

Founded in 2000, Kaben is a leading developer of reconfigurable transceivers that enable Next Generation wireless communications based on multiple standards (Bluetooth, FM, GPS, Wi-Fi, W-USB, WiMax). Kaben is also a leading provider of specialized, high performance RF component cores, such as programmable Sampled-IF Filters (on-chip SAW replacement), Digital-to-IF Converters (high linearity, no analog baseband), and Frequency Synthesizers (ultra-low phase-noise, ultra-low spur level), for embedded and stand-alone use. Kaben delivers high-performance, proven designs to manufacturers in the wireless communications market, that significantly reduce risk, cost, and time to market. For more information, please visit our website at www.kabenwireless.com.