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Design Achieves Wi-Fi Protected Set-up Certification

August 19, 2010

GainSpan’s embedded Wi-Fi sensor reference design enables users to connect to existing Wi-Fi networks with the press of a button.


SAN JOSE, CA -- GainSpan Corporation, a leader in low power embedded Wi-Fi solutions, announced that its Wi-Fi Sensor Reference design has become Wi-Fi CERTIFIED for Wi-Fi Protected Set-up (WPS). Wi-Fi Protected Set-up is the industry standard developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance that simplifies the process of setting up a secure Wi-Fi network.

Nearly half of Wi-Fi users experience moderate to high difficulty in setting up secure networks, and as many as 40% of consumers leave their networks completely unsecured. With Wi-Fi Protected Set-up, joining a network is simple—all that is required is the push of a button or the entry of a short PIN code. Users no longer have to enter a network identifier (SSID) and pass phrase to enable WPA security. Wi-Fi Protected Set-up will automatically configure a wireless network with a network name (SSID) and strong WPA/WPA2 data encryption and authentication.

With Wi-Fi Protected Set-up certification, GainSpan customers can offer devices and appliances that are easy to provision and be assured that the devices could attach to a WPS certified Access Points (AP) which represent the majority of the installed base of AP and most if not all the APs shipping today.

GainSpan offers customers both push button or PIN code implementations of Wi-Fi Protected Set-up, allowing users to set up a protected wireless network with ease. Other GainSpan provisioning options include peer-to-peer embedded web server provisioning.

"As Wi-Fi technology continues to connect a wider array of embedded devices, or 'things', in both home and enterprise, it's important that we have a simple, straightforward way to add these devices to the network," said Pankaj Vyas, vice president of software and systems, GainSpan. "Over the past three years, we have been dedicated to making Wi-Fi provisioning as simple as possible. By our participation in the WPS certification process, we are fulfilling that goal."

GainSpan's Wi-Fi Sensor Reference design received Wi-Fi certification last December and was the first low power Wi-Fi design to achieve certification for enterprise level WPA/WPA2 security as well as personal security. The reference design is based on the GainSpan GS1011 Wi-Fi SoC. The reference design supports data rates of up to 11 Mbps and can operate in 802.11 b/g/n networks. The sensor reference design can be purchased from GainSpan's online store as part of an evaluation kit.

GainSpan is a leader in low-power embedded Wi-Fi and offers an extensive suite of solutions including Wi-Fi chip and module products, comprehensive firmware solution, evaluation and development kits. With GainSpan embedded Wi-Fi solutions, customers across a variety of industries can now develop a whole new class of Internet-connected products. The company is focused on five key market segments: healthcare and fitness, smart energy, industrial control, commercial/building automation and consumer home.

About GainSpan
GainSpan is a leading fabless semiconductor company focused on connecting things wirelessly to the Internet. GainSpan's low power embedded Wi-Fi allows devices to leverage the large base of Wi-Fi access points and gain Internet connectivity. Solutions from GainSpan simplify and accelerate the process of adding Wi-Fi to devices by offloading Wi-Fi and IP functionality from any 8-32 bits microcontroller. GainSpan embedded Wi-Fi is used in applications including healthcare, smart energy and control and monitoring for industrial, commercial and home markets. The company is based in San Jose, CA, and has R&D facilities in Bangalore, India.






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