SiBeam takes wraps off Wireless HD technology

LONDON — Gigabit wireless technology startup SiBeam Inc. has revealed some details of the 60GHz technology that it and partners in the WirelessHD consortium plan to deploy to deliver a promised gigabit per second of multimedia content wirelessly in the home.

Dubbed OmniLink60 and made in a standard CMOS process, the working chipsets will deliver non-line-of-sight beam steering and A/V connectivity for wireless video networks.

SiBeam (Sunnyvale, Calif.) said the first products will be WirelessHD compliant and would be used for wireless uncompressed video display.

SiBeam revealed Wednesday (June 27) that it developed both successful transmit and receiver 60 GHz chipsets in CMOS as far back as 2005.

The Wireless HD Consortium was formed late October 2006 and also includes LG Electronics Inc., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., NEC Corp., Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd, Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. to develop a technology that will handle secure near line-of-sight communications with smart antenna technology across a 10 meter range.

Applications include streaming 1,080-progressive video from media and broadcast players, game machines or PCs to TVs or home theater systems.

The spec, full details of which are expected to be announced within months, also aims to address file transfers between camcorders, cameras, DVD recorders and TVs. Latency should be as little as 5 to 15 milliseconds.

SiBeam claims it is the first company to build working 60 GHz chips in standard CMOS and says it achieved several breakthroughs in developing OmniLink60 technology, including CMOS modeling at millimeter wave frequencies, multi-element antenna technology and enabling non-line-of-sight functionality for A/V applications at the 60 GHz band.

The company has filed multiple patents that recognize the company’s high-performance, micro-array, multi-element antenna technology.

"We’ve conquered some of the industry’s most challenging obstacles surrounding 60 GHz. Our aim with this technology is to exploit the 7 GHz of unlicensed spectrum around 60 GHz to provide very high data rates to multiple users within an indoor wireless environment using conventional silicon," said John LeMoncheck, SiBeam CEO.

LeMonchek adds SiBeam's competitive advantage lies in two areas: its high-speed, interference-free frequency band, and its directional technology. Other networking technologies such as 802.11n and UWB targeting the same home networking space instead use already crowded frequency bands.

Non-line-of-sight functionality is a critical component of the new OmniLink60 technology, says LeMonchek. The technology incorporates micro array antenna technology to dynamically establish the optimal path from a signal source, such as a set-top box, to a receiving device, such as an HDTV. When the antenna detects a weakening signal due to an obstruction like a person walking in the signal’s path, it automatically re-surveys the environment for a new, best path and adjusts the beam without disruption in the signal's transmission.

The company says each SiBeam-enabled device will be able to be aware of not only other devices in the network, but will also be aware of that device's capabilities, such as whether it is a digital video camera, game console, digital camera or camcorder or set-top box.

It adds the 60 GHz band offers the spectral availability for true uncompressed HD video, audio and data transmission, scalable to future HD A/V formats.