Wi-Fi giants aim to dominate emerging 60GHz standards
Published: 7 May, 2009
The battle to dominate the digital home, and the high speed multimedia network, gets ever more confusing. UltraWideBand may have bowed out of the race, at least for the time being, but high speed 802.11n Wi-Fi, the clear default option in the near term, faces a future challenge from new technologies for the 60GHz band, which could promise higher data rates at lower power and other advantages. Aware of this possible threat, the Wi-Fi community has moved to ensure 60GHz remains under its own control, challenging alternative 60GHz approaches like WirelessHD.
Five leading Wi-Fi chipmakers have formed the Wireless Gigabit Alliance and say their standard, predictably dubbed WiGig, could be in products by late 2010, with first specifications due later this year. These specs will aim to support 60GHz short range networking at speeds of 6Gbps.
The WiGig initiative is spearheaded by chip majors Intel, MediaTek, Broadcom, Marvell and Atheros, and has signed up Dell, LG Electronics, Microsoft, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung and Wilocity. Contributing members include NXP, Realtek, STMicroelectronics and Tensorcom.
Many of the OEMs are also members of other 60GHz groups like WirelessHD but WiGig will hope to draw all these activities into a single effort. There has already been conflict between two 60GHz groups within the IEEE - one emerging from 802.11 Wi-Fi (the VHT or Very High Throughput project) and one from the 802.15 family of personal area network standards. WiGig has a good chance of uniting these, but there are also other initiatives, focused on technology from start-ups like Amimon and SiBeam, whose actual products are further down the track than WiGig. SiBeam's chip for wireless HDMI is the basis of the Wireless HD Alliance, which includes Intel, Broadcom, LG, Samsung and Sony. The silicon has already been demonstrated in TVs from Toshiba and Panasonic.
The WiGig spec, which is 80% complete, uses a range of protocol adaptation layers to target different applications, a technique also used by the WiMedia UWB platform, now merged with Wireless USB. Layers for WiGig include whole home video over 10 meter ranges, to wireless HDMI, to low power gigabit links over five meters for cellphones. Atheros expects tri-band products, supporting 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi plus 60GHz, to emerge. This is likely to be the secret of WiGig's success - like Bluetooth, embracing future iterations of Wi-Fi rather than competing with them, and so reducing the cost and risk for manufacturers of including new capabilities in consumer electronics gear and even phones.
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