| Lily Yang, Research & Development Manager from Intel's Hillsboro, Oregon laboratory talked about 60 GHz for Gigabit WPAN and WLAN. WPAN is a wireless personal area network for interconnecting devices centered around an individual’s workspace, where all the connections are wireless.
Typically, a WPAN uses some type of technology that permits communication within about 10 meters, a very short range. One such technology we regularly use is Bluetooth, which was used as the basis for IEEE 802.15. WPAN will operate in the 57-64 GHz unlicensed band as defined by FCC 47 CFR 15.255.
Lily explained the background of Intel's research into moving data at higher rates for the home and office. She said that with 60 GHZ spectrum there is a potential for moving data at over one Gigabit per second (1 Gbit/s) and up to 8 Gbit/s. This will allow things like fast video transfer at a kiosk where you will buy a movie for your Mobile Internet Device (MID) or mobile smartphones – all of them Intel Atom powered, of course.
Intel has a corporate goal of shipping 15 billion computers by 2012.
One of the ways to do that is to have lots more mobile devices moving data about. An important way to attain the goal will be reducing power demand on batteries in mobile devices. A new technology for increasing battery power is by http://www.itexaminer.com/new-lithium-ion-battery-juice-gives-faster-charging.aspx” target=_blank”>Global Soken.
60 GHz has an advantage with seven GHz of unlicensed spectrum bandwidth available from the FCC. This technology would also be effective for video signage on super-large screen displays.
Already in the prototype phase are CMOS radio designs which will reduce the cost of producing mobile devices with this type of communication transport. Because 60 GHz has a small wave length which will allow on-chip antennas and an overall small form factor.
One of the future possibilities that could be done are a dual frequency hybrid WLAN which bridges 5 GHz and 60 GHz into a single high through-put wireless system.
A major drawback for 60 GHz is a lack of radio frequency penetration through nearly anything. This type of system will be restricted to short distances for data. Also any military or weather RADAR that is operating in the area would have to be taken into consideration, because they would have a cross over effect which will cause significant interference.
Another fundamental problem is if a person walks through the 60 GHz radio path, the connection is immediately broken.
As you can see there are many hurdles for Lily and her staff to overcome before a 60 GHz high-speed WLAN/WPAN will be on the market. X
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