Rival bodies battle for multigigabit wireless local network market

Stuart Corner
Friday, 18 September 2009 08:22

IT Industry - Strategy

The WirelessHD Consortium was formed in November 2007 by Broadcom, Intel, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Philips Electronics, NEC, Samsung Electronics, SiBeam, Sony and Toshiba. Its aims sound remarkably similar to those of WiGig. "To define a specification for the next generation wireless digital network interface specification for consumer electronics products." Specifically, the WirelessHD has a stated goal of enabling: "high interoperability supported by major CE device manufacturer; uncompressed HD video, audio and data transmission, scalable to future high-definition A/V formats; High-speed wireless, multi-gigabit technology in the unlicensed 60GHz band."

In December 2008 Standards body ECMA International published its 60GHz standard for short range unlicensed communications as ECMA-387 (available on the ECMA website as a free download). According to ECMA "The standard provides high rate wireless personal area network (including point-to-point) transport for bulk data transfer and multimedia streaming." It is being submitted for fast track approval as an ISO/IEC standard and has been implemented in a singe CMOS chip developed by The Georgia Electronic Design Centre (GEDC). ECMA says its members have already demonstrated its performance.

Australia's NICTA, meanwhile, has developed, and demonstrated, the world's first transceiver integrated on a single chip operating at 60GHz on the CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) process, the most common semiconductor technology. It claims that "The breakthrough will lead to wirelessly connected environments that will enjoy audio and video transfer rates of up to 5Gbps ten times the current maximum wireless transfer rate, at one-tenth the cost."

The WirelessHD Consortium announced earlier this month launch of its first products in Europe following the EU's decision to approve the 60GHz band for unlicensed commercial use (The 60GHz band is also approved for similar use in North America, the Asia-Pacific region, Brazil, Russia, India and China).

According to WirelessHD: Panasonic's Z1 series with WirelessHD technology is available now for sale in Europe, Asia and North America; LG Electronics' LH85 and LH95 LCD TVs with WirelessHD are available in Asia and North America; Funai Electronic Co have demonstrated WirelessHD adaptors and more products from several manufacturers are expected to roll out later this year. WirelessHD also announced the addition of Philips, Yamaha, Funai, ST Micro and NXP to its membership, taking the total to over 40.

CONTINUED