UWB is the term for next-generation personal area networking technology, the stage beyond Bluetooth in terms of bandwidth. However, the IEEE abandoned efforts to hammer out an agreement between rival factions at a meeting this time last year and it is not a standard.
It was left to the market to decide, and the WiMedia Alliance camp, with heavyweights such as Intel and Texas Instruments among its members, looks the stronger contender. Wisair, which is based in Campbell, California, is one of a handful of silicon vendors who base their UWB offerings on the Alliance’s OFDM-based spec, and the 542 chip has recently been granted WiMedia PHY registration.
After the IEEE’s decision last January, both camps in the argument turned their attention to winning OEMs in the area of consumer electronics and computer peripherals. The idea was to pitch their UWB technologies as Wireless USB: the Alliance refers to Certified Wireless USB, while the rival camp centered on Freescale calls its alternative Cable-Free USB.
The Wisair chipset, and the products based on it from companies like MiTAC, are Certified Wireless USB offerings. In MiTAC’s case, it is using the 542 to produce a Wireless USB hub and a PCI Express Mini Card, both of which will be on display at next week’s International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
While a lot of Wireless USB kit can be expected to be on show next week, UWB has also moved on of late, with vendors turning the bulk of their attention to a potentially even larger market. They have begun pitching it as a superior protocol for in-home HD video distribution compared to WiFi, in that it has greater link reliability and a better packet error rate, though WiFi has the edge elsewhere in that it is alone in offering multi-point networking and true routing capabilities.
