LucidPort Frees USB from the Ties that Bind it

Few would argue against the fact that USB has made the lives of all computer users easier by allowing a nearly endless chain of peripherals to be connected. What’s the next step ? In April, LucidPort Technology will be offering the L800, a Certified Wireless USB peripheral controller that fully supports both wired and wireless USB.

The L800 chip harnesses WiMedia UWB technology to interoperate with other UWB and Certified Wireless USB products at transfer speeds reaching 480 Mbps. It supports compliant packet sizes, burst sizes, transfer sizes, and number of endpoints. The L800 manages the protocol requirements of many USB class devices, wired and wireless.

It has specialized logic for encryption, as well as cable and numeric association. LucidPort says this makes the L800 ideal for use in printers, scanners, digital camcorders, external hard disks, and other peripherals. The company provides a Reference Design Kit (RDK) which includes a PCI adapter board with the L800 and a UWB PHY module.

These boards effectively convert a PC into a USB Peripheral with a development environment. Included sample drivers and peripheral side firmware can be used to configure the L800 as a standard USB-class device, like a hard disk or video camera. Custom peripherals can be built with LucidPort’s APIs, which abstract USB operations to reads and writes. The L800 is priced at $4.98 for quantities of 400,000.