With ultrawideband technology losing its steam, the wireless contest is narrowing to SiBEAM's WirelessHD running at 60 GHz and Amimon's Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) running at 5 GHz, with Amimon's proprietary wireless technology grabbing the first big design-win for commercial products.

Next Monday (Nov. 10), when Sony Corp. rolls out in Japan an ultrathin 40-inch LCD HDTV called Bravia ZX-1, the Japanese consumer electronics giant will be relying on Amimon's proprietary wireless HD technology to wirelessly transmit and receive audio and video signals between ZX-1's display unit and its tuner.

Sony separated the ZX-1's tuner from the display so that the LCD TV display can be as slim as 9.9 mm.

This is a big win for Israel-based Amimon and the company's proposed WHDI format. The win comes as several competing wireless contenders, including ultrawideband, 60-GHz radios and other twists on the 802.11 standards have been fighting the wireless connectivity battle with no clear winner on the horizon.

Speculation about Amimon's design win in Sony's ZX-1 started this summer. But it was only during a recent interview with EE Times here that, Yoav Nissan-Cohen, chairman and CEO of Amimon, confirmed the design win.

"I am not going to deny it," he said.

A Sony spokesman in Japan reached by EE Times Japan on Tuesday (Nov. 4), said, "We will not officially disclose the [wireless connectivity] format."

But the Japanese spokesman described the wireless technology used in Bravia ZX-1 in telling detail. He noted, for example, that it "runs on 5 GHz," wirelessly transmitting "uncompressed video for a distance of 20 to 30 meters." It's capable of up to 1080-progressive HD video input, but video is "converted into 1080i for wireless transmission," he added.

Technical specs listed by Sony point to a single answer: Amimon's wireless technology inside the ZX-1.