News

Airbee and Link Plus Sign Strategic Partnership to Bring Long-Range Wireless Technology to New Markets (29/6/2004)

Airbee Wireless and Link Plus Corporation, two Washington, DC-area companies, today announced a strategic partnership for co-developing a series of new products around the emerging ZigBee/IEEE 802.15.4 wireless standard.

Under terms of the strategic alliance, the companies are integrating a bundle of secure, high-performance RF wireless technologies to be implemented as a sophisticated series of low-cost system bundles and ultimately systems on a chip (SOC) offerings. Resulting products will apply Link Plus AWICS(R) radios and microprocessor-based hardware and Airbee UltraLite(TM) embedded software protocols.

"Our patented AWICS wireless hardware platform provides a long range, real-time radio capability that can be applied to several large and important emerging markets, among them automatic meter reading, home automation, point-of-sale, and automotive security," said Dr. Jonathan P. Gluckman, executive vice president and COO of Link Plus. "When combined with Airbee's proprietary software stack, we expect to be able to reduce system size and power to produce highly efficient modules for these and other industries."

Gene Sharer, Airbee Wireless COO, added: "Porting Airbee software to Link Plus' proven microprocessor environments accelerates time to market for many applications, while using approved ZigBee specifications leverages Airbee's investment in protocols emerging from the ZigBee Alliance. One of our major contributions to the strategic partnership is our long-term expertise in developing a complete package of application program interfaces (APIs). Application notes to support these APIs are critical tools when porting our technology software bundles from one platform to another."

The two executives also anticipate their co-licensing agreement to reduce time to market significantly for their respective product development programs. They said that the relationship is expected to develop a revenue stream of several million dollars per year.

Gluckman noted that Link Plus is building a substantial presence in the automobile security market. Airbee's technology has immediate application to a remote, keyless entry product Link Plus is preparing for volume production late in the third quarter of 2004. He estimated 10,000 units would be produced initially under a separate contract with a third party, growing to more than 300,000 units a year. Link Plus has many similar opportunities in the automatic meter reading environment as well, another market where RF unit volumes are expected to be very large.

The ZigBee wireless protocol is working its way through engineering studies by the ZigBee Alliance, an association of companies working together to enable reliable, cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products based on an open global standard. The ZigBee Alliance is a rapidly growing, non-profit industry consortium of leading semiconductor manufacturers, technology providers, OEMs and end-users worldwide.

Sharer said the next engineering specification from the ZigBee Alliance is expected to be published soon. Airbee is a participating member in the Alliance and has a substantial base of expertise in the IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee standards.

www.airbeewireless.com
www.linkplus.com