Freescale and Flextronics to deliver high-end enterprise WLAN solution

AUSTIN, USA: Freescale Semiconductor has partnered with Flextronics to create a high performance reference design for the Enterprise WLAN access point market.

Based on Freescale’s PowerQUICC II Pro MPC8377E processor, the IEEE® 802.11N access point reference design offers a comprehensive, production-ready solution which scales from 400 MHz to 800 MHz and speeds time-to-market.

The solution supports dual-band 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz concurrent operation with 3 x 3 MIMO. This functionality, together with the high performance and low-power operation of the MPC8377E processor, enables greater than 300 megabits per second throughput while meeting the requirements of IEEE802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE).

The MPC8377EWLAN 802.11N Access Point RDS showcases Flextronics’ wireless and networking product design and engineering capabilities. Complete with open source application software based on Linux technology, the RDS platform can serve multiple markets, including the highest growth segments of the WLAN space.

The offering provides a complete solution including software packages for small/medium business and enterprise wireless access points, which combined with the high performance of the MPC8377E device provide significant headroom for value-add services.

“Freescale selected Flextronics as one of our key partners to help us deliver reference design solutions engineered to meet the specific needs of our customers,” said Raja Tabet, vice president of Solutions Enablement Technology for Freescale's Networking & Multimedia Group. “This new solution gives our ODM and OEM customers the turnkey, production-ready solutions they need to speed time-to-market and succeed in the marketplace.”

Flextronics’ high-volume production capabilities and the expertise of its Shanghai Infrastructure Design and Engineering Center teams enable OEM customers to develop and release products to market faster with market-proven technologies. The MPC8377EWLAN is the first production-ready solution resulting from this collaboration and adds to Freescale’s portfolio of reference design solutions intended for small/medium businesses.

“We are continually focused on ways to improve our service offering to OEMs in the network and infrastructure space, and today’s announcement exemplifies our focus on developing cutting-edge products for a more competitive wireless and networking solution,” said Brent Serbin, global vice president and general manager of Flextronics Infrastructure Design and Engineering. “Freescale has a strong reputation as a leader in embedded semiconductor markets that are also served by Flextronics, which creates a great deal of synergy and enables us to leverage the benefits of our combined services and skill sets.”

MPC837x PowerQUICC II Pro
As Freescale’s highest performance PowerQUICC II Pro offering, the MPC8377E device provides the reference design with enough performance to support the advanced 802.11N wireless standard.

It consumes only 4.1 Watts when running at 800 MHz for high-performance enterprise-class solutions and can scale to 400 MHz for cost-sensitive Access Point solutions. This performance enables wireless access points offering more than 300 megabits per second, allowing for many more users per router, as well as the ability to send huge files instantaneously.

In addition to the high levels of performance it provides in the WLAN reference design, the MPC8377E is also ideal for other applications requiring ultra-high performance such as network attached storage, printing applications and networking solutions. The device includes Freescale’s SEC security engine designed for secure wireless transmission and is highly integrated to include both PCI and PCI Express® interfaces.

Freescale’s PowerQUICC II Pro processor family features exceptional integration and performance. Based on Power Architecture® technology, Freescale processors enable secure, cost-effective data storage, streaming and sharing for consumer and small/medium business markets.

The MPC8377E PowerQUICC solution accommodates the high-bandwidth requirements of video conferencing and voice-over-WLAN (VoWLAN) applications and the secure communication with encryption and VPN services necessary for data services.

MPC8377EWLAN RDS availability and pricing
The MPC8377EWLAN 802.11N Access Point reference design is a production-ready solution with FCC-Class B certification, significantly reducing time-to-market for OEM customers. It includes support for MiniPCI or MiniPCI Express WLAN modules, and scales to 800 MHz to support multiple radios.

The MPC8377EWLAN RDS comes with source code and Linux BSP technology, application-level software, GUI interfaces and more. The solution is available now from Freescale and its authorized distribution channels. The per-unit cost of the reference design is a suggested resale price of $449 (USD).

MPC837x PowerQUICC II Pro pricing and availability
Samples of the MPC837x device are available now. Suggested retail pricing in 10K quantities for non-encrypted versions of the MPC837x family ranges from $23-$30.