The coalition, known as the MutiBand OFDM Alliance (MBOA), will next week present a proposal to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for a UWB specification (known as 802.15.3a) combining aspects of TI’s own technology with that of Intel and its partners.
Specifically, the new allies aim to merge TI’s orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) approach with the multi-band technology promoted by the MultiBand Coalition, a consortium made up of Intel, Philips, General Atomics and others. Electronics giants Sony, Matsushita, NEC and Samsung are also backing the initiative.
The grouping essentially leaves only the pairing of Motorola and XtremeSpectrum touting an alternative approach to UWB, a variation on CDMA. The meeting next week marks the first opportunity for interested parties to vote on the proposals submitted to the IEEE’s UWB task group.
UWB differs from other commercial wireless networking technologies by spreading its signal in pulses across a wide frequency range instead of concentrating it in a small continuous signal in a narrow band. The UWB specification calls for a technology able to deliver 110Mbps at a range of 10 meters and 480Mbps at 1 meter.
Source: Computerwire
