Freescale Semiconductor unveiled a technology roadmap to push Ultra-Wideband (UWB) into the gigabit range. Over the next year, Freescale plans to deliver three advanced UWB product families, including the industry’s first 1 Gbps UWB solution. The company’s existing XtremeSpectrum UWB chipset achieves over 110 Mbps. Freescale revealed that its planned UWB product families will be engineered to deliver 220 Mbps, 480 Mbps and 1 Gbps data transfer rates. Consistent with its current UWB offerings, the planned UWB families will be engineered to support peer-to-peer as well as ad hoc networking for truly mobile wireless connectivity. To address the demand for a low power, cost-effective UWB solution for handheld applications such as mobile phones, media players, digital cameras and camcorders, Freescale’s planned UWB product families will also be designed to integrate sophisticated power management tools to help extend battery life.
The planned product families, which are to be designed to comply with the Federal Communications Commission’s current Ultra-Wideband Report & Order, are scheduled to include driver support for multiple operating systems. The mini- PCI and SDIO module form factor are expected to enable integration into the smallest consumer electronics, while providing a variety of interfaces including PCI, mini-PCI, PCI-Express and USB2, and IEEE 1394. The Freescale Media Access Control (MAC) chip is compliant with the IEEE 802.15.3 MAC protocol, while the Freescale PHY, which is based on the 802.15.3a DS-UWB proposal, provides data transfer rates ranging from 110 Mbps to 1Gbps. This support helps CE vendors to ensure interoperability among their product lines.
Freescale said potential UWB applications could include consumer electronics products such as digital displays, DVD players, digital video recorders and set-top boxes, as well as handheld applications such as camcorders and digital cameras. The company is also expecting new, high data rate applications to emerge over the next three years, such as new media players that allow storage of multiple MPEG-4 movies. Such devices could use 1 Gbps UWB solutions to upload/download the entire movie in just a few seconds. Portable hard drives are another emerging application. http://www.Freescale.com
- Freescale Semiconductor is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Motorola.
