WAVELAN(R)-II - A HIGH-PERFORMANCE WIRELESS LAN FOR THE UNLICENSED BAND

In July 1997 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IE EE) completed standard 802. 11 for wireless local area networks (LANs) . WaveLAN(R)-II, to be released early in 1998, offers compatibility wi th the IEEE 802. 11 standard for operation in the 2.4-GHz band. It is the successor to WaveLAN-I, which has been in the market since 1991. A s a next-generation wireless LAN product, WaveLAN-II has many enhancem ents to improve performance in various areas. An IEEE 802. 11 direct s equence spread spectrum (DSSS) product, WaveLAN-II supports the basic bit rates of I and 2 Mbls, but it can also provide enhanced bit rates as high as 10 Mbls. This paper discusses various aspects of the system design of WaveLAN-II and characteristics of its antenna, radio-freque ncy (RF) front-end, digital signal processor (DSP) transceiver chip, a nd medium access controller (MAC) chip.