Fueled by the growth of the wireless LAN market, Alpha Industries, Inc. has announced that it is experiencing strong order growth for its new family of ultra-linear GaAs switches for 802.11b chip sets used in small office, enterprise and home applications.
In recent months, Alpha, based in Woburn, Mass., has received orders in excess of 3 million units for high-performance ultra-linear GaAs (gallium arsenide) switches used in wireless LANs. The increase has been driven by strategic design references with a number of companies including the industry's leading provider of 802.11b chip sets. In addition, Alpha has just introduced a new 5.8 GHz transceiver chip set, featuring a power amplifier, low-noise amplifier and GaAs switch, for 802.11a applications.
"Our relationship with key players in the 802.11 market positions Alpha to continue gaining share as this business gains momentum," says Liam Griffin, Alpha's vice president of sales and marketing. "Recent industry data identifies WLAN for business, small office and home applications as among the communications industry's hottest segments. The orders we are receiving today are in production, and we expect to see accelerating revenue from this market beginning in 2002."
WLANs permit wireless transmission of data between personal computers, laptops and other wireless devices located up to a radius of several hundred feet away. 802.11b has been broadly adopted as the industry standard for WLANs operating in the 2.4 GHz range, in part because it offers seamless interoperability among multiple vendor platforms.
Alpha Industries is a provider of RF integrated circuit-based solutions, including semiconductors and ceramic components, for the wireless and broadband communications markets.
