Touch to transfer, at 500Mbps

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 20 July 2008 09:57

Business IT - Technology

Three years ago The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced its intention to work with the developers of ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless technology to combine "the strengths of both technologies". It said the decision would allow Bluetooth technology "to extend its long-term roadmap to meet the high-speed demands of synchronising and transferring large amounts of data as well as enabling high quality video applications for portable devices" and "UWB will benefit from Bluetooth technology's manifested maturity, qualification program, brand equity and comprehensive application layer."

Early in 2006 The WiMedia Alliance selected Bluetooth to underpin its future radio platform and the Bluetooth SIG selected the WiMedia Alliance's multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) version of ultra-wideband (UWB) for integration with current Bluetooth wireless technology. It was claimed that the integration of these technologies would meet the high-speed demands of synchronising and transferring large amounts of data as well as enabling high quality video and audio applications for portable devices, multi-media projectors and television sets while continuing to cater] to the needs of very low power applications such as mice, keyboards and mono headsets."

The end result was expected to be a UWB technology that would provide throughput up to 480Mbps at distances of around 10 metres.

And as far back as October 2005 Freescale Semiconductor staged the first demonstration of a device based on its chipsets that supported communication using the Bluetooth protocol stack in both Bluetooth and UWB communications. It was claimed that thee combination would provide an "unbeatable high-speed data exchange system for wireless consumer products."