Alantro Communications was founded in Aug. '97 to develop physical-layer communications technology. The founders, Chris Heegard, Ph.D., and Eric Rossin, Ph.D., are well-known experts in the field of information theory and have extensive experience in the development of physical layer technology. Alantro's goal is to be a leading supplier of physical-layer systems and a publicly traded, producer of state-of-the-art digital transmission systems.

The company has unique expertise in existing and emerging forward error control and modulation/demodulation technology. Its ASIC design and implementation expertise enables the realization of high-performance designs into physical layer chips. Alantro has high-performance designs for HDSL2, MDSL, high-speed 2.4 Ghz wireless LAN modems, J.83b compatible cable modems, and a turbo coding design platform. Alantro intends to become a leading supplier of highly integrated, physical layer systems.

Alantro creates and implements existing and emerging physical layer transmission technology. The company specializes in hardware (HDL) and software (DSP-based) realizations of these systems. Alantro focuses on building high-speed, digital transmission systems that are efficient in terms of capacity, reliability and cost. The basis of this activity is the creation of FEC based modems for high-speed digital transmissions.

Alantro specializes in the design and development of all types of forward error control (FEC) and modulation/demodulation elements. Alantro's founders are experts in current and leading-edge FEC technology (such as turbo codes). According to Alantro, different designs of the same FEC codes can result in very different physical layer performance. Alantro claims that its leading-edge FEC and modulation/demodulation methods offer a measurable advantage over competitors in performance, size (gate count), and noise margin. Alantro employees many modulation/demodulation methods including Adaptive Equalization, Digital Timing/Carrier Recovery, and Digital Rate Control. Alantro has expertise in many FEC coding areas including Reed-Solomon coding, Interleaving, Binary convolutional coding, Trellis coding, Viterbi decoding, and Turbo Coding, a new and powerful class of FEC. Turbo codes' performance is significantly better than prior generations of FEC. Alantro is actively developing and deploying turbo codes to further exploit the capacity channels in everything from hard disk drives to coax cables to satellite links.

The IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN committee has adopted Alantro's proposal for an enhanced performance option for wireless LAN. The proposal is a robust 2.4 Ghz variable-rate scheme that will offer performance enhancements such as extended range, increased reliability, and multipath immunity, while remaining compatible with the existing standard. The new IEEE 802.11 standard for high-speed wireless LAN is expected to be complete in 1999.

Standard IP core products include a 64-state Viterbi Encoder/Decoder, Digital Cable FEC, HDSL-2 FEC and a Reed-Solomon Decoder Core. The 64-state Viterbi Encoder/Decoder is targeted at applications that require an integrated replacement for the Qualcomm Q1900 64 State Viterbi/Trellis decoder and is provided as synthesizable Verilog HDL. The Digital Cable FEC core is intended for use in digital cable demodulator systems, as well as for applications such as MCNS Compliant Cable Modems and Digital Broadcast Television. The HDSL-2 FEC provides encoder and decoder functionality for the emerging HDSL-2 standard. The decoder provides a 512 state Viterbi core, data formatting, and channel quality monitoring. The Reed-Solomon error correction core is used in DVB, HDTV, Satellite and RF applications.

Alantro is keeping very quite these days, but is building a strong communications team and IP portfolio. Look for some exciting product announcements in the future.

Chris Heegard, Ph.D, CEO, principal scientist, and co-founder (Formerly founder and chief scientist for Native Intelligence, a digital communications software company.)

Eric Rossin, Ph.D, President, CFO, Dir. of Engineering and co-founder (formerly a Principal Engineer with Next Level Communications)

Scott Petler, Director of ASIC Design, co-founder (formerly a Principal Engineer with Next Level Communications)

Liz Bortolotto, Dir. of Marketing (formerly held management and engineering positions in Marketing and R&D for networking and RF/microwave products divisions at HP)