Qualcomm Inc. has acquired Airgo Networks, which developed the Multiple-Input, Multiple-Out (MIMO) technology. Together with its previous acquisition of Flarion Technologies Inc., which provided the intellectual property rights for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) technology, the acquisition places Qualcomm in a good position to have a large role in the wireless broadband market. Qualcomm, a chip manufacturer based in San Diego, acquired Airgo to extend its mobile broadband offering via the integration of Airgo's 802.11a/b/g and 802.11n technology into its cell phone chips. Qualcomm will also use Airgo's technology in the Snapdragon platform, which is designed for wider consumer electronics deployment. Qualcomm's acquisition of Airgo is similar to its purchase of Flarion. It enables integrated products with wireless local area networks and wireless wide area network capabilities, says Greg Raleigh, president and chief executive officer of Airgo. The MIMO technology is the foundation of the IEEE's 802.11n standard for higher WiFi throughputs, and Airgo has sold about 3 million in-home MIMO-powered products under the brand names of Linksys and Netgear. MIMO involves transceivers and receivers. Rather than the Single-Input, Single-Output antenna architecture that eliminates multipath propagation, MIMO takes advantage of this to provide higher data throughput and range because of lower error rates.