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Ralink

Taiwanese semiconductor company

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ291312 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ralink Technology, Corp. is a Wi-Fi chipset manufacturer mainly known for their IEEE 802.11 (Wireless LAN) chipsets. Ralink was founded in 2001 in Cupertino, California, then moved its headquarters to Hsinchu, Taiwan. On 5 May 2011, Ralink was acquired by MediaTek.

Some of Ralink's 802.11n RT2800 chipsets have been accepted into the Wi-Fi Alliance 802.11n draft 2.0 core technology testbed. They have also been selected in the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) and Wireless Multimedia Extensions Power Save (WMM-PS) testbeds. Ralink was a participant in the Wi-Fi Alliance and the IEEE 802.11 standards committees.

Ralink chipsets are used in various consumer-grade routers made by Gigabyte Technology, Linksys, D-Link, Asus and Belkin, as well as Wi-Fi adaptors for USB, PCI, ExpressCard, PC Card, and PCI Express interfaces. An example of an adapter is the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector which uses the Ralink RT2570 chipset to allow a Nintendo DS or Wii to be internetworked via a home computer.

Operating systems support

Ralink provides some documentation without a non-disclosure agreement.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ralink” as taiwanese semiconductor company. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2001, 2011—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2001. The account is most persuasive where Ralink, Taiwanese and semiconductor can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as taiwanese semiconductor company. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q291312. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2001 and 2011.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ralink”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ralink primary sources, Ralink archive and Ralink research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ralink”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ralink” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.