Philips licenses W-OFDM from Wi-LAN

Philips licenses W-OFDM from Wi-LAN
CALGARY, Alberta — Philips Semiconductors formalized its relationship with Wi-LAN Inc. on Wednesday (Sept. 22) by signing a license to use the company's Wideband Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (W-OFDM) technology in wireless 1394 and other applications. Philips demonstrated several of the technologies at the IFA conference in Berlin last month.

Wi-LAN has used its algorithms in a variety of wireless LAN and wireless local loop systems, but Philips will be the first to use W-OFDM in a high-speed point-to-point link like 1394. OFDM algorithms also have been chosen as the official IEEE standard for 802.11a, and are used in many digital video broadcast systems.

Hatim Zaghloul, chairman and chief executive of Wi-LAN, said that joint work with Philips began in June, when the two companies demonstrated dual full-motion MPEG-2 streams over unlicensed bands. The pact with Philips specifies a one-time license fee, plus royalties based on chip sales. Philips gains exclusive rights to the use of W-OFDM in consumer markets for one year, though Wi-LAN retains the rights to license algorithms to companies that do not compete with Philips.

Zaghloul said that the two companies are developing standard products based on the "iWill" FPGAs which Wi-LAN developed as modulators for wireless local loops. Philips plans to sell chip sets on the merchant market, while Wi-LAN will sell modules for a variety of specialized wireless LAN and serial-link markets. Zaghloul added that it was likely that Wi-LAN will establish U.S. offices soon to spur further development of vertical applications for W-OFDM.