IBM and the Taiwan based fabless semiconductor firm, MediaTek have announced plans for a joint initiative to develop ultra fast chipsets that can wirelessly transmit a full-length high definition movie to and from a home PC, hand-held device, retail kiosk or television set nearly as fast as a viewer can push their remote control.
The new technology will allow consumers to rid their homes of the cumbersome wires needed to connect their HD-TVs to set top boxes and allow the placement of devices anywhere that is convenient, instead of having to organize furniture and other accessories around technology.
Both companies will combine their expertise in millimeter wave (mmWave) radio technology -- the highest frequency portion of the radio spectrum where massive amounts of information can be sent quickly -- and digital chipsets to create revolutionary multimedia wireless products. The large bandwidth for data transmission available at the mmWave frequency band enables at least 100 times higher data rates than current Wi-Fi standards.
For example, you could upload a 10 gigabyte file in five seconds with the new technology versus 10 minutes using current Wi-Fi technology.
IBM Research has been engaged in mmWave technology research and development for the last four years. In collaboration with IBM's TJ Watson Research Center and IBM's Tokyo Research Lab, IBM demonstrated a prototype packaged chipset as small as a dime to wirelessly transmit uncompressed HD Video in February 2006. IBM used their 0.13-micron silicon germanium BiCMOS process to manufacture the chips.
Posted to the site on 22nd October 2007
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/26843.php