April 17, 2008 -- Icron Technologies Corp. has released its USB 2.0 Ranger 2101 and USB 2.0 Ranger 2104 Cat 5 extenders, which the company claims offer significantly improved distance over previous USB 2.0 extension products.
The company says that over the past 18 months it has focused its research and development initiatives on evolving its core ExtremeUSB technology to be more flexible and cost effective to encourage quick adoption into larger markets. According to Icron, with over 2 billion USB ports shipped to date and increasing penetration in the consumer electronics (CE) space, there is growing demand from customers to move USB beyond the desktop and provide flexible bridging capability for USB 2.0 devices.
Ranger 2101 and Ranger 2104 are the first products to be introduced in Icron's USB 2.0 bridging product line, which the company says will include finished products, embedded modules, chipsets and IP cores enabling end users, OEMs and ODMs to implement USB 2.0 bridging and extension capability powered by ExtremeUSB technology.
The company says its ExtremeUSB technology transparently bridges USB over a variety of media, from Cat 5 and fiber optics to current and future wireless media, power line communications, and coax platforms. When combined with video, the technology is designed to provide a plug-and-play solution for remote desktop and KVM applications in markets including industrial, commercial, and medical. For the digital home market, ExtremeUSB enables users to extend the PC desktop, as opposed to just selected media, to any TV in the home, without installing another PC by the TV.
According to Icron, the Ranger 2101 provides a single USB 2.0 remote port at 100 m over Cat 5 cables, resulting in a 100% increase in distance over previous solutions, at 45% of the cost. The Ranger 2104 offers the same performance, but integrates a USB hub to provide four remote USB 2.0 ports. The Ranger 2101 and Ranger 2104 are available for sale at a MRSP of $349 and $389, respectively.