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WiGig Alliance Cranks Out Speedy New Data Standard
December 14, 2009 | Apple
Home entertainment systems could soon see much higher wireless transmission speeds — possibly of up to 7 gigabits per second (Gbps) — if the plans of the Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) Alliance continue on course.
The Alliance, members of which include companies in the chip, mobile phone and telecommunications industries, announced the completion of its unified wireless specification on Wednesday.
The spec uses the 60 GHz spectrum and will enable data transfer at rates more than 10 times faster than today’s wireless LANs (local area networks). It will be offered for implementation in the first quarter of 2010.
The WiGig specs support data transmission rates of up to 7 Gbps, which is more than 10 times faster than the highest 802.11n WiFi rate. It also supplements and extends the 802.11 Medium Access Control (MAC) layer and is backward compatible with the IEEE 802.11 standard.
“Our technology is backwards compatible with existing WiFi, and we fall back to 802.11n and 802.11g when we can’t connect at [7 Gbps] speeds,” Ali Sadri, chairman and president of the WiGig Alliance, told TechNewsWorld. “We’re based on 802.11, so our spec is not replacing WiFi but extending it to 10 to 20 times faster than WiFi.”
The specification’s physical layer enables both low-power and high-performance WiGig devices, guaranteeing interoperability and communications at gigabit rates.
The WiGig Alliance is developing protocol adaptation layers to support specific system interfaces. These include data buses for PC peripherals and display interfaces for high-definition television sets, monitors and projectors.
The specifications also support beamforming, which enables robust communications at distances beyond 10 meters. “We focus the energy in one direction and the power of our transmission plus antenna gain will let you reflect the beam off walls, the floor and ceilings,” Sadri explained. “In the prototypes we’ve developed, we can do communications in a room and beyond a room, to the room next to it.”
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