High-speed wireless technology to replace bulky cables

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 i
ndustry 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.