IBM announces 630 Mbit/second millimeter wave chipset

Do we really need yet another potential standard for high-speed wireless? IBM seems to think so, and has announced that it has fabricated a working prototype chipset based on 60 GHz millimeter wave technology. According to the company, the chipset is capable of transmitting data at 630 Mbit/second over distances of 10 meters, which may make it a serious challenger for ultra wideband, which is typically rated at 480 Mbits/second. While this may sound great, it'll inevitably lead to yet another round of squabbling among standards-setting bodies, and still more delays until any of this actually gets into the hands of speed-hungry consumers.

[boe @ Feb 6th 2006 12:19PM]

We need something to replace bluetooth. Still sucks for most phones/headsets.

[ch424 @ Feb 6th 2006 12:26PM]

Seeing as "ultra wideband" is already producing working samples at an approved frequency, while this is simply a working prototype, and this will presumably use considerably more power, for 1.5x the speed which isn't needed anyway (HDDs can only sustain a fraction of that) I can't see it being a serious challenger. Also, this is the work of just IBM (the competitor has been made by a group of companies, all eager to support it) meaning it may well remain proprietary and limited.

We'll see where this goes... possibly nowhere?

ch424

[tiuk @ Feb 6th 2006 1:01PM]

How about some advancements in battery technology? Wireless rocks, but only being able to use it for a couple of hours on a single charge doesn't.

[Uninvisible @ Feb 6th 2006 1:40PM]

Maybe they should have ditched this and tried to make the G5 run efficiently in a laptop, instead...

Oops, too late.

[Brandon @ Feb 6th 2006 1:54PM]

Seems like we are wasting time chasing after 5-10% increases when that money could be spent on developing completely new technology that revolutionizes wireless speed.

[Motor @ Feb 7th 2006 11:19AM]

Good idea no?



Business/Financial Desk; SECTC
Those Cables Behind the Television May Become Obsolete
By JOHN MARKOFF
411 words
6 February 2006
The New York Times
Late Edition - Final
2
English
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 5 -- A team of I.B.M. researchers plans to report this week that they have used standard chip-making materials to develop a high-speed wireless technology that could do away with the bulky cables that now connect electronic devices in the living room.

In the past, high-frequency wireless technology has generally required exotic semiconductor materials like gallium arsenide that are costly to work with and difficult to miniaturize.

On Tuesday, at an annual semiconductor industry design meeting here, the researchers are expected to describe a design that is capable of transmitting more than 10 times the data of today's Wi-Fi using lower-cost silicon germanium material.

The researchers said the new technology would be ideal for moving HDTV video signals around the home wirelessly in the unlicensed 60-gigahertz portion of the radio frequency spectrum.

This is referred to as the ''millimeter wave band,'' and it has long held out the promise of carrying far more data than other portions of the spectrum.

Moreover, because the high-frequency portion of the radio spectrum generally does not penetrate walls, it may be more palatable to Hollywood and the cable and D.S.L. telecommunications firms, which have been concerned about the risks of piracy posed by some wireless technologies, said Richard Doherty, a computer industry consultant at Envisioneering Inc., based in Seaford, N.Y.

''It might appease Hollywood, but Monster Cable would lose out,'' he said.

The use of silicon germanium is significant because it exploits standard equipment that is readily available in I.B.M. chip-making plants, according to Modest Oprysko, a manager in communication technology at I.B.M.'s Yorktown Heights research laboratories.

That means that there is potentially a relatively quick path from research to commercialization.

''This is Bluetooth on steroids,'' he said, referring to the current industry standard that has been used as a wireless cable replacement.

The I.B.M. researchers said that despite the fact that the millimeter wave technology would have a short range in the home, it might have significant applications as a low-cost alternative in point-to-point communications systems that are popular as data links on corporate campuses.

One of the advantages of the shorter wavelength systems is that the antenna can be assembled as part of the chipset, further lowering the cost of the technology.