Metalink Intros MIMO 802.11

YAKUM, Israel -- Metalink Ltd. (NASDAQ: MTLK), a provider of high performance wireline and wireless broadband communication silicon solutions, today entered the wireless LAN (WLAN) market with the first in a planned family of products, WLANPlus(tm), that will enable IEEE 802.11n networks to deliver the necessary performance and coverage to handle high-bandwidth digital entertainment content. The company's initial product for this emerging WLAN market segment is the world's first single-chip radio frequency (RF) device to support Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna technology used in the IEEE 802.11n standard being developed for next-generation Wi-Fi(r).

"Metalink's goal is to help move IEEE 802.11n beyond fast data networking to fulfill its promise as a video and multimedia delivery technology for wireless home entertainment," said Tzvika Shukhman, chairman and chief executive officer with Metalink. "In addition to offering our new, highly integrated RF device as a stand-alone product for use with other MIMO or smart-antenna baseband chips, we also will be including it as part of a complete IEEE 802.11n MIMO chipset that we plan to unveil soon. We are confident that our WLANPlus product line is a crucial building block for the digital home networks."

According to ABI Research, more than 150 million Wi-Fi ICs will be embedded into consumer electronics products by 2007, many of those driven by the need to deliver multimedia content.

"Audio receivers, DVRs, home and portable game consoles, and portable media players will reshape the home entertainment environment by unleashing content to be freely distributed throughout the home," said Philip Solis, ABI Research senior analyst. "This includes content streamed over the Internet, as well as content from the PC or any other consumer electronics device. The proliferation of Wi-Fi in the home is causing consumers to expect to be able to access their content from anywhere in the home. Newer Wi-Fi equipment must be able to perform well with high throughput at a great range while still maintaining compatibility with existing Wi-Fi equipment. MIMO technology is important because it will make this happen."

Metalink Ltd.