Ultrawideband is a broadband technology for wirelessly networking electronic devices to one another. It has several advantages over competing wireless technologies, including its speed, power consumption and cost.

Its radio architecture is significantly simpler than traditional wireless transmission architectures. Rather than use an RF carrier, ultrawideband works by transmitting a series of very low-power pulses. Because those pulses are extremely narrow (10 to 1,000 picoseconds), its emission bandwidth spans a wide range of the frequency spectrum, generally more than 2 GHz. Ultrawideband delivers data rates of 100 Mbits/second and higher (for streaming digital video and audio), features power consumption of around 200 milliwatts (nonimpactive on battery-powered products like PDAs) and is very low in cost: Its bill of materials of less than $20 will facilitate broad consumer adoption. By way of comparison, ultrawideband's performance is two to 10 times faster than existing wireless LAN technologies and 100 times faster than Bluetooth, yet its power consumption is amenable to battery-powered, handheld products such as a PDA or digital camera. And because ultrawideband is manufactured in standard CMOS, it is very cost-effective.

Ultrawideband is the first wireless technology that does not require a compromise among data rate, power consumption and cost. This compromise has delayed the consumer market's adoption of wireless technology.

On the heels of the FCC's approval of the technology, ultrawideband semiconductor products will begin shipping this year. Based on typical product-design cycles, that means consumers will begin to see ultrawideband-enabled products by Christmas 2003.

Martin Rofheart is Chief Executive Officer of XtremeSpectrum (Vienna, Va.).