Ralink Technology, Corp. is a Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...

 chipset manufacturer which is mainly known for their WLAN

Wireless LAN

A wireless local area network links two or more devices using some wireless distribution method , and usually providing a connection through an access point to the wider internet. This gives users the mobility to move around within a local coverage area and still be connected to the network...

 chipsets. Now headquartered in Hsinchu

Hsinchu

Hsinchu City is a city in northern Taiwan. Hsinchu is popularly nicknamed "The Windy City" for its windy climate.Hsinchu City is administered as a special municipality within Taiwan . The city is bordered by Hsinchu County to the north and east, Miaoli County to the south, and the Taiwan Strait...

, Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, Ralink was founded in 2001 in Cupertino, California

Cupertino, California

Cupertino is an affluent suburban city in Santa Clara County, California in the U.S., directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 58,302 at the time of the 2010 census. Forbes...

 and it was bought in 2009 by the taiwanese company MediaTek

MediaTek

MediaTek Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company, designing and selling components for wireless communication, optical storage, GPS, high-definition digital TV and DVD products. The company was founded on May 28, 1997...

.

Some of Ralink's 802.11n RT2800 chipsets have been accepted into the Wi-Fi Alliance

Wi-Fi Alliance

The Wi-Fi Alliance is a trade association that promotes Wireless LAN technology and certifies products if they conform to certain standards of interoperability. Not every IEEE 802.11-compliant device is submitted for certification to the Wi-Fi Alliance, sometimes because of costs associated with...

 802.11n draft 2.0 core technology testbed. They have also been previously selected in the Wi-Fi Protected Set Up (WPS) and Wireless Multimedia Extensions

Wireless Multimedia Extensions

Wireless Multimedia Extensions , also known as Wi-Fi Multimedia , is a Wi-Fi Alliance interoperability certification, based on the IEEE 802.11e standard. It provides basic Quality of service features to IEEE 802.11 networks. WMM prioritizes traffic according to four Access Categories - voice,...

 Power Save (WMM-PS) testbeds. Ralink is a participant in the Wi-Fi Alliance

Wi-Fi Alliance

The Wi-Fi Alliance is a trade association that promotes Wireless LAN technology and certifies products if they conform to certain standards of interoperability. Not every IEEE 802.11-compliant device is submitted for certification to the Wi-Fi Alliance, sometimes because of costs associated with...

 and the IEEE 802.11 standards committees.

Ralink chipsets are used in various consumer-grade routers made by Gigabyte Technology

Gigabyte Technology

Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. is a Taiwan-based manufacturer of computer hardware products best known for its motherboards. The company is publicly held and traded on the Taiwan Stock Exchange .-Company:...

, Linksys

Linksys

Linksys by Cisco, commonly known as Linksys, is a brand of home and small office networking products now produced by Cisco Systems, though once a separate company founded in 1995 before being acquired by Cisco in 2003...

, D-Link

D-Link

D-Link Corporation was founded in June 1986 in Taipei as Datex Systems Inc. It began as a network adapter vendor and has gone on to become a designer, developer, and manufacturer of networking solutions for both the consumer and business markets.In 2007, it was the leading networking company in...

, Asus

ASUS

ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated is a multinational computer technology and consumer electronics product manufacturer headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Its product range includes motherboards, desktops, laptops, monitors, tablet PCs, servers and mobile phones...

 and Belkin

Belkin

Belkin International, Inc., is a Californian manufacturer of computer hardware that specializes in connectivity devices, headquartered in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California...

, as well as Wi-Fi adaptors for USB

Universal Serial Bus

USB is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices....

, PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect

Conventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer...

, ExpressCard

ExpressCard

ExpressCard is an interface to allow peripheral devices to be connected to a computer, usually a laptop computer. Formerly called NEWCARD, the ExpressCard standard specifies the design of slots built into the computer and of cards which can be inserted into ExpressCard slots. The cards contain...

, PC Card

PC Card

In computing, PC Card is the form factor of a peripheral interface designed for laptop computers. The PC Card standard was defined and developed by the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association which itself was created by a number of computer industry companies in the United States...

s and PCI Express

PCI Express

PCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards...

 interfaces. An example of an adapter is the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector

Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector

The Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector is an accessory, developed jointly by Nintendo and Buffalo Technology, which allows Nintendo DSi and Nintendo 3DS and Wii users without a Wi-Fi connection or compatible Wi-Fi network to establish one via a broadband-connected PC...

 which uses the Ralink's RT2570 chipset to allow Nintendo DS

Nintendo DS

The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

s and Wii

Wii

The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...

s to connect to the Internet via a home computer. Newer products are the RT2501 and RT2600.

Operating systems support

Ralink provides documentation without a non-disclosure agreement

Non-disclosure agreement

A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement , confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties...

.

Linux

Ralink provides GPL drivers for Linux. While Linux drivers for the older RT2500 chipsets are no longer updated by Ralink, these are now being maintained by Serialmonkey's rt2x00 project.

Current Ralink chipsets require firmware. Ralink allows the use and redistribution of the firmwares, but does not allow their modification.

Linux includes partially working (no AP or Ad-hoc mode) drivers for Ralink cards starting from version 2.6.24. However, these drivers require firmware to function. Completely free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 GNU/Linux distributions such as gNewSense

GNewSense

gNewSense is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. Its goal is to maintain the user-friendliness of Ubuntu, but with all non FSF approved software and binary blobs removed. The Free Software Foundation considers gNewSense to be a Linux distribution composed entirely of free software.gNewSense takes...

 are expected to be unable to support current Ralink chipsets unless the firmware's license is changed. Old chipsets such as RT2400 (802.11b) and RT2500 (802.11g) should be supported. Ralink rt3070 Injection/monitor support for Linux is now found in Beini linux distribution.

Free/Net/OpenBSD

Due to Ralink's practice of providing documentation without a non-disclosure agreement, virtually all Ralink wireless chipsets are supported on all three of the major BSD systems. Indeed, the OpenBSD development team recommends the use of Ralink chipsets for this reason.

External links

• Ralink website
• List of Wi-Fi products using the Ralink RT2500 chipset
• rt2x00 project: Linux drivers.
• ral, ural manual page for OpenBSD
  OpenBSD
  OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995...