Ubicom, Ralink announce connected multimedia reference designs for emerging CE products

2011 International CES, SAN JOSE & CUPERTINO, USA: Ubicom, a leading networked CPU provider, and Ralink Technology Corp., a leading developer of high performance wired and wireless solutions, announced general availability of turnkey reference designs for several consumer multimedia products.

These turnkey reference designs combine Ubicom’s networking and advanced multimedia capabilities of the IP7500 family of 32-bit processors, and Ralink’s Wi-Fi expertise through its RT3070 802.11-b/g/n chipset. Ubicom and Ralink will be demonstrating these solutions at their respective suites at CES 2011.

The Ubicom-Ralink Wi-Fi DLNA Audio Player solution delivers consumer electronics manufacturers a turnkey hardware and software solution enabling the quickest time to market for DLNA-compliant wireless audio products. The design is targeted at a wide range of products including AVRs, Mini-Micro systems, wireless Audio clients, iPod docks, and wireless speakers. Ubicom’s software platform is pre-certified for DLNA 1.5, UPnP and Microsoft's Windows 7 ecosystem, and the Ralink WiFi module is Wi-Fi Alliance certified for WPA, WPA2, WMM, WMM-PS and WPS.

The Ubicom-Ralink Internet Audio Player Reference Design enables customers to rapidly add streaming audio capability to existing products or develop tabletop internet radio products. Thousands of radio stations and Internet-based music services such as Pandora, Shoutcast and Aupeo are accessible through the reference design. Multimedia content can also be accessed automatically through the platform’s DLNA media client and via local storage, and it can be combined with other media sources such as iPod, iPhone or iPad, as well as FM radio into a single product.

“The time is right for connected multimedia solutions in the consumer space. Streaming video is already mainstream, and 2011 is the year when streaming audio will become mainstream as well,” said Gangesh Ganesan, president and CEO at Ubicom. “The joint solution with Ralink allows OEMs and ODMs to quickly bring products to market to take advantage of the momentum towards streaming digital media.”

“We are excited about the joint solution with Ubicom as it enables quick time to market,” said Shin-jou Fang, CEO of Ralink Technology Corporation. “This is the first set of ready-to-deploy reference designs for this space and Ubicom’s innovation has helped bring our combined networking expertise to market. We believe the market is ready for this integrated platform, and together Ubicom and Ralink have the expertise and customer relationships to catalyze the market successfully.”

The WiFi DLNA Audio and the Internet Audio Player reference designs are available now.