Cogency Introduces HomePlug Wall Adapter for Powerline Home Networking

May 13, 2002 - Cogency Semiconductor today announced the availability of its USB-HomePlug Wall Adapter Reference Design to address the need for low cost, simple to use consumer products that will drive the powerline home networking market. Intended for manufacturers of consumer electronic devices, the comprehensive manufacturing kit reduces time-to-market and ensures a consistent, high-performance product. For consumers, the resulting product is as simple as plugging the wall adapter into an ordinary electrical outlet and a USB port of a computer or electronic device, to share Internet access, files, music, as well as video streams throughout the home. The USB-HomePlug Wall Adapter turns any electrical outlet into a network port, allowing USB-enabled computers or other electronic devices to easily establish a fully functioning Ethernet-like network throughout the entire home. Unlike other networking technologies the wall adapters require no special wiring, central hub or switch, base-station or CAT-5 wiring to construct the network. The HomePlug-based solution also eliminates the expense and burden of installing cable throughout the home.

"This new design gives home networking and consumer electronic equipment manufacturers the smallest, lowest powered, and most cost effective HomePlug-compatible home networking device available," said Ron Glibbery, CEO and President, Cogency Semiconductor. "We are providing product manufacturers with a complete design that can be efficiently manufactured, UL/FCC approved and HomePlug-certified." Using the reference design, which is based on Cogency's Piranhna chipset, manufacturers can create USB Wall Adapter products that are the footprint of a credit card, and sell to consumers for well under $99.

"Cogency's Wall Adapter moves the industry forward in terms of its unique form factor and ability to provide consumers with a simple way of creating a home network," said Tom Reed, President of the HomePlug Powerline Alliance. Leading research firms predict that the overall market for home networking will grow from $1.4 billion in 2001 to $9.2 billion worldwide in 2006. Given expected consumer demand for home networking products, the Continental Automated Buildings Association notes that future home designs will include electric outlets with built-in network capability.

The USB-HomePlug Wall Adapter Reference Design is enabled by Cogency's industry leading Piranha chipset. Piranha is a highly integrated and cost effective HomePlug 1.0 compliant chipset operating at 14 Mb/s, which features low power consumption, easy product integration, and a flexible processor based MAC.

Pricing and Availability
Cogency's USB-HomePlug Wall Adapter Reference Design (RF1100-UWA) is priced at $25,000 and consists of two USB-to-HomePlug wall adapters and a complete set of manufacturing support materials: schematics, bill of materials, Gerber files, layout guidelines, Windows device driver, installer, encryption key management application and production test application. The production test application is designed to minimize both test setup and testing time by taking advantage of the onboard production test capabilities of the Piranha chipset. The product is sampling now to early access partners, and general release is planned for third quarter 2002.

For more information on the company, please visit www.cogency.com.

For more information on the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, see www.homeplug.org.

SOURCE Cogency Semiconductor