New High Speed Wireless Chipset from IBM

YesSir writes to tell us IBM scientists are reporting that they have created a new low-cost wireless chipset that could allow devices to communicate up to ten times faster than current technology. From the article: "Using the IBM-pioneered chip-making technology called silicon germanium, the chipset is able to send and receive information in a portion of the radio spectrum that is both unlicensed and can carry a much higher volume of data, a key advantage as data-intensive digital media formats, such as HDTV, become more pervasive."

How long before the FCC closes "the IBM hole"?

[alexwcovington]

These guys just don't like free spectrum.

Re:How long before the FCC closes "the IBM hole"?

[Wesley Felter]

60GHz signals are absorbed by oxygen (much like 2.4GHz is absorbed by water), so the FCC figured that frequency must be useless and the public might as well be allowed to play with it.

Re:How long before the FCC closes "the IBM hole"?

[gardyloo]

60GHz signals are absorbed by oxygen (much like 2.4GHz is absorbed by water), so the FCC figured that frequency must be useless and the public might as well be allowed to play with it.

      Ha! There's such an easy fix to that, but I'm afraid to post it here because some free-bandwidth zealot will take me seriously and do something about it...

Re:How long before the FCC closes "the IBM hole"?

[DarkSarin]

it's as simple as getting rid of all the oxygen...

Re:How long before the FCC closes "the IBM hole"?

[Crizp]

This deserves a funny mod :)

Re:How long before the FCC closes "the IBM hole"?

[agony_zhou]

I thought the molecule of oxygen (O2) is not polarized, so it should not absorb EM wave at any frequency by resonance? H2O and CO2 are polarized, and they obsorb 2.45GHz and 915MHz respectively. My chemistry is rusty though.

O2 absorption

[chihowa]

Molecular oxygen is paramagnetic. It's explained by the permanent magnetic moment caused by the two unpaired electrons.

Quoth JH Van Vleck: "Even though electrically non-polar, oxygen gas absorbs microwaves because the magnetic moment of the O2 molecule interacts with electromagnetic fields." The Absorption of Microwaves by Oxygen [aps.org]

So molecular oxygen is an exception to the generally true assumption that a molecule needs to be polar to absorb EM radiation.

Yeah...

[TWX]

But how long will it take for a damn open source kernel driver to come out? Ndiswrapper is a pain.

Re:Yeah...

[arodland]

If IBM actually makes the chips, probably not so long. They're not Broadcom, y'know :)

Re:Yeah...

[richlv]

actually, that is the first thing i actually care about. if there is/will be none - i will avoid wasting my money on that.

So basically...

[Tuxedo Jack]

540Mb/s. Wow. Admittedly, this would be excellent for desktop usage in the average organization, but I still can't see wireless being used for servers - gigabit is just too essential to give up, plus there's the issue of setting up the infrastructure to handle 540Mb/s via wireless - I mean, hell, it's hard enough to share 54Mb/s for one access point as is when you've got 10 users on it, but still...

Re:So basically...

[jcgf]

I agree. Wired is almost always better if you can run the wire. I mean it's faster, cheaper, more secure, and you don't have to worry about interference as much .

Re:So basically...

[j.a.mcguire]

do you still only get about 60% of the available bandwidth from this new tech with all the overheads? sorta puts it in the 324mb/s from your original 540mb/s but I thought the article only said 5x performance increase? which puts us in the 270mb/s max range @ 60% gives us 162mb/s. more than enough for HDTV which is ~20mb/s. But then 802.11g should also cover that, 54mb/s @ 60% = 32.4mb/s.

Re:So basically...

[j.a.mcguire]

that 20mb/s spec for HDTV I quoted was for 1080 interlaced, I guess for full 1080 progressive you're looking at double that, 40mb/s

Re:This is going to change the future...

[Douglas Simmons]

Of porn, actually.
You must be new here.

Re:This is going to change the future...

[geofferensis]

Of pirate porn!

Ewwwww. There are things a peg leg was just not meant to be used for.

Oh crap

[dasdrewid]

At first, it was just the radio. Nice background noise to do stuff to. Then they made wireless tv sets (like, battery powered...), which was ok. I could take them outside and take a quick break while studying. Then came wireless internet. No longer could I go somewhere and fight the urge to surf simply because I had nothing to surf with, so I began to grow some self-control. But wireless HDTV... Crap. Couldn't they at least wait until I've graduated?

Maybe they'll at least do something nice, like imbed it in some of those sunglasses with the built-in monitor so I can actually enjoy my lecture classes whilst only giving off the appearance of a hangover (which wouldn't be too far out of the norm...)

Re:Oh crap

[Xypheri]

but with no wires how are the wire monkeys gonna make their money? i mean.. what will they do without HDMI Cables [circuitcity.com] to shower upon the unwitting masses? after all they have finally gotten those low brow buisness types needing their gold plated USB cables [bestbuy.com] to push all of them 480 mbps.

Re:Oh crap

[ACME Septic]

But wireless HDTV... Crap. Couldn't they at least wait until I've graduated?

You're really gonna shit your pants when you figure out what the acronym "OTA" stands for.

Re:penetration

[papasui]

higher you go the less dense a material it will pass through.

Oh Great...

[DJCacophony]

How much will I have to pay for yet another router if I want this? Why can't we all just agree on one high-speed wireless standard?

Re:Oh Great...

[ginotech]

because innovations happen very fast, and that's a good thing. you don't have to get the latest stuff anyway.

Geez

[homer_ca]

If you don't want 540Mb/s just keep your old router. It's not like 60GHz is going to interfere with your 2.4GHz signal.

Range

[binaryDigit]

Some applications that might now be possible using this 60 GHz technology include wireless personal-area networks (PANs) for intra-office communications in the 10m and below range.

So range is still a big problem. I'm sure that 10m is in an "ideal" environment as well, so they'll have to work out how to improve the range of this system. I guess the "easy" way would be to simply have repeaters everywhere, I'm sure the folks like Cisco are drooling at that prospect. Also wonder how it will do with interference, and if anyone else has any plans to utilize that area of the spectrum?

Re:Range

[TekGoNos]

Extending range? Simple : remove the oxygen from the air.

Actually, there are folks using it over 2.5 km (with expensiv antennas, and NOT through walls) :
http://www.terabeam.com/solutions/whitepapers/bene fits-60ghz.php [terabeam.com]

(I suspect that the 10m might actually be a feature to allow frequencies to be re-used)

Re:Range

[lelitsch]

60 GHz has one additional problem for longer ranges: Oxygen molecules have an absorption line rigth about there. So in addition to 1/r^2, you also get thermal degradation. But they can, of course go a bit up or down in wave length.

It actually wouldn't be that bad...

[Belial6]

You know, even if it was only 5m of actaul usage, it wouldn't be so bad. if the tech is cheap, you just poke the antena through the ceiling, and you don't have to worry about any other wires. Most businesses have hanging ceilings, and most homes have attics. It sure would make the wiring easier. Plus with those speeds, you could have multiple devices in a room, and still have reasonable speed.

Re:Range

[Spy Hunter]

Range isn't a problem at all. This doesn't replace Ethernet; it replaces USB, FireWire, VGA, DVI, RCA, optical, and HDMI cables (and it'll probably be cheaper than those high-end cables anyway). The short range makes this frequency ideal for unlicensed use, because interference also has a short range, and your private transmissions are much less likely to be intercepted. Thus it's an ideal replacement for short data cables of all kinds. I look forward to the day my mouse, keyboard, monitor, and printer

Re:Range

[Mattsson]

"Now if only they could do something about those pesky power cords..."

Easy. Buy a few containers of surplus batteries cheap. ^_^

Seriously, though, it should be possible to create a open standard em-charge desk-cover that would power anything you put on it, like monitor, mouse, keyboard, printer, mobilephone, portable harddrive, etc.
Not exactly cordless, but at least it's only one cord for everything ontop of the desk.
There already exist such pads, but they are proprietary and small.

Sounds like IBM has solved the problem of cables

[Maximalist]

Even if this is a short range technology, it sounds like it could do away with just about every cable connection going into the back of my desktop box except the power cord. Let it be super Bluetooth... that would be great!

Re:Sounds like IBM has solved the problem of cable

[cnettel]

Not the monitor, unless you plan to place the video codec within that one. (Surely a dream for the media companies...)

Heat and power consumption?

[darealpat]

Any idea about how hot these things will be in a typical notebook? That will be an issue as well as their power consumption over time, especially during a boring 3 hour lecture, or when outside downloading a torrent.

Re:Ten Times Faster Than Present Technology!!!

[Penguinoflight]

The claims for those speeds in wireless are just plain wrong. If we get lucky IBM will double current performance at reasonable distances.

BlueTooth V3.0

[Rac3r5]

Seems like an improvement on blueTooth. I think this tech has a lot of potential. I suspect the small range is due to the fact that the antenna is embedded onto the chip. Maybe hooking up a booster antenna might help amplify the signal further.

Re:BlueTooth V3.0

[SaDan]

The antenna is probably so small you wouldn't bother with an external/"booster" antenna.

Frequency allocation.

[gositz]

Only a part of the spectrum mentioned in the article (from 30-300 GHz) is 'unlicensed', and it is all 'allocated' to some use. A very informative chart can be found at: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf [doc.gov] The bottom row shows the allocation of frequency space from 30-300 GHz. Dense to say the least.

630 Mbps @ 10M.

[WindBourne]

Not bad. Apparently this was designed for inter-satellite communication. I wonder what distance this could go in space. [ibm.com]

Re:630 Mbps @ 10M.

[psycho8me]

It was designed of inter-satellite communication because at that frequency(60ghz) the waves are absorbed by oxygen.

Re:630 Mbps @ 10M for Intra-Sat Comms

[squidguy]

Why bother using this for intra-sat comms when you have intra-sat masers/lasers doing the same thing (and carrying much more data)? Perhaps there is a cost savings for systems not requiring the higher data rates... this is presumably an omnidirectional transmitter, or at least wide spot-beam, so the challenges of laser aiming would be negated.

IBM != Lenovo

[nurb432]

IBM just sold off the produciton and distribution of desktops and thinkpads to china.. They didnt sell off the research department, or 'PC server' production, or 'big iron'. ( unless they did this recently and didnt tell the rest of us ).

This is an alternate-format ultrawideband (UWB)

[writertype]

From the ExtremeTech article [extremetech.com]:

"IBM researchers said Monday that they have created a low-power chipset that will compete with ultrawideband technology, offering data rates at around 630 Mbits/s.

"The chipset conforms to the IEEE 802.15.3c specification, which IBM refers to as "millimeter wave" or "mmWave" technology, according to Brian Gaucher, a research manager with IBM Research. "

The bit where it talks about how the 630-Mbits was the limits of their test equipment was cool...

This will be line of sight only

[Animats]

At 300GHz, you have to have line of sight between transmitter and receiver. The wavelength is only 1mm, and you're not going to diffract around anything bigger than a broom handle. This will work more like an IR link.

Re:This will be line of sight only

[GreyWolf3000]

I think the range is somewhere between 30 and 300 GHZ. I don't know how well 30 GHZ signals bend, though.

here's some info on silicon-germanium alloy (SiGe)

[5plicer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiGe [wikipedia.org]

Eh?

[TallMatthew]

Using the IBM-pioneered chip-making technology called silicon germanium

That's a pretty flowery description.