Quantenna, a Wi-Fi chip startup, on Tuesday emerged from stealth mode with the announcement of a chip set that supports a new standard and includes capabilities to boost the performance and reliability of in-homeWi-Fi networking.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company, which has been around for about 30 months, is targeting a market that analysts believe will grow significantly over the next few years. Yet Quantenna will face three entrenched chip makers who also target the in-home Wi-Fi market.

Quantenna's chips power wireless networking devices such as routers, which are usually connected to DSL or cable modems, and a growing array of consumer devices including set-top boxes that connect to the in-home Wi-Fi network.

In recent years in-home Wi-Fi has grown beyond voice and data to include bandwidth-hogging in-home video transmissions such as IPTV and high-definition TV (HDTV). In most cases Wi-Fi is replacing unsightly and unwieldy coaxial cables.

But the reasons for coaxial replacement are not entirely aesthetic.Wireless installation and troubleshooting are easier and far less expensive for the carriers since they rarely involve sending technicians to customer homes.

Wi-Fi's performance degrades in the home because of interference and signal clutter. Video is not very forgiving of poor performance and reliability, so Wi-Fi has gained from supporting technologies.

It has benefitted from the emergence of a new standard 802.11n that promises better reliability and throughput.

Quantenna has integrated many of those new supporting technologies, such as 4x4 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), beam forming, and support for 802.11n, into its high-speed chip sets

MIMO is a multiple antenna technology that improves Wi-Fi performance, and beamforming sharpens and adjusts the direction, range, and stability of the transmission.

"The combination of these technologies allows you to reliably cover even the most difficult or the largest homes and eliminate interference from the neighbors in high-rise buildings," said Dr. Behrooz Rezvani, Quantenna’s founder and CEO.

Quantenna, which has received $27 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, Sigma Partners, and Venrock Associates, will compete with much larger U.S. chipmakers Broadcom, Atheros and Marvell.

"The market is so big and there are really not that many players so we think we will do fine even in the current economic climate," Dr. Rezvani said.

Quantenna will begin sampling its chips with customers this quarter.