Wipro-NewLogic tops in Bluetooth, wireless IP market : India

Bangalore, Sep 19 - Wipro-NewLogic, the semiconductor business unit of the IT bellwether, has been ranked as the number one supplier of wireless LAN (local area network) and Bluetooth IP (Intellectual Property) by Gartner in a recent survey. The Austria-based NewLogic became a wholly owned subsidiary of Wipro Ltd. after the latter's flagship IT division (Wipro Technologies) acquired it in Dec 2005 for $56 million. According to Gartner, the global IT research and advisory firm, Wipro-NewLogic emerged as the top vender with a 61 percent market share, which is three times more than its nearest competitor in wireless LAN. Similarly, the subsidiary became the number one worldwide supplier of Bluetooth IP with 59 percent market share in 2006. 'We have been recognised as the world leader in WLAN and Bluetooth IPs, reinforcing our leadership. Our latest IP, which is software upgradeable to Bluetooth 2.1, has passed official testing,' Wipro-NewLogic director Mana Coste said in a statement here Wednesday. The new IPs have enabled the company to win several customers for turnkey solutions in designing complete SoCs (system on chips). 'The new trend in wireless IP integration is combo solutions where different wireless technologies coexist in the same device - especially in laptops and smart-phones,' Costa pointed out. The subsidiary's wireless LAN IP offers an IEEE 802.11 (hardware & software), modem (baseband) and radio (RF) as a complete silicon solution. The Bluetooth portfolio consists of the base-band core, a full software protocol stack, and a CMOS RF transceiver. The IPs are used to integrate wireless connectivity in ASICs and SoC devices. Target applications include laptops, mobile phones, PDAs, MP3 players/PMP with audio/video streaming capability from Internet to personal computers, digital still cameras, headsets and access points. The innovative solutions are demonstrated at the customer facilities or in the subsidiary's offices in Lustenau (Austria), Sophia-Antipolis (France), Munich (Germany) and in Bangalore and Pune.