Entropic Communications, a start-up based in San Diego, introduced a chipset capable of transforming existing coaxial cabling inside a home into a high-performance home network. Entropic's c.LINK-270 chipset delivers a maximum data rate of 270Mbps. The company said its waveform technology can traverse, or jump, cable splitters from output to output while co-existing with all the content (cable, satellite, etc.) currently on the coax. The Entropic chipset consists of two ICs: an RF front-end, and baseband controller with an embedded Media Access Controller (MAC). c.LINK technology supports three protocols over the same coax wire: Ethernet, MPEG Transport Stream, and IEEE-1394. A c.LINK-enabled home network supports up to 10 simultaneous channels, each of which has a data capacity of up to 270Mbps for multiple simultaneous HD/SD MPEG Transport Streams and Ethernet packets. For security, c.LINK packets are DES encrypted. The chipset could be used in a variety of consumer electronics, such as STBs, TVs, PCs, and DVRs.
Entropic Communications and Toshiba will be demonstrating c.LINK-enabled devices at the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. http://www.entropic-communications.com
- Entropic Communications has raised over $46 million in financing and is backed by Anthem Venture Partners; Time Warner; Cisco Systems; China Development Industrial Bank; CMEA Ventures; Comcast Interactive Capital; The Dow Employees Pension Plan; Intel; Liberty Associated Partners, LP; Mission Ventures; Motorola; Panasonic; Redpoint Ventures; Revolution Ventures; and YAS Broadband Ventures.
