Scientists at IBM have developed a chip set that they claim is capable of allowing wireless devices to operate more than 10 times faster than today’s advanced Wi-Fi networks.
The chip set, using silicon germanium, is designed to operate in the 60-GHz band, an unlicensed portion of the radio spectrum that can be used to transport data-intensive formats such as HDTV (high-definition television), IBM said today.
Electronics makers have been looking for ways to exploit this portion of the radio spectrum, but previous chips designed to tap that potential were too large, expensive and difficult to integrate with other products, the company said.
The use of silicon germanium technology allows a high level of integration in the chips themselves, according to IBM. Antennas can be embedded directly into the chip set, helping to reduce system costs.
The rumor is that enough of this chipset is off-the-shelf IBM that they can have it rolling to device manufacturers within a year.
WTH is “silicon germanium”?!
I hope it’s just a reporter’s misunderstanding….
That would be great…if it works!
We already have plenty of High-Speed wireless standards, and adding more doesn’t help at all. Yoywcan do HDTV over 802.11G, and MIMO gives you plenty of range. What we need is less competing standards and more development in the standards that we already have. It’s like this stupid Plu-Ray -vs- HD-DVD thing… two competing standards that do the same thing, and in the mean time there are no HD-DVD’s, even commercially.
Faster… faster… faster… that may be good for some things… but in this case, more developed technique would be more satisfying.
As the resident geek for my part of the world, a new wireless standard means mor calls that go like this. “I just bought this cool new “insert product here” why wont it see my old Wi-Fi network?”
The chip set, using silicon germanium, is designed to operate in the 60-GHz band
60 GHz?? Damn, I didn’t know Gigahertz could go that high…
Isn’t the speed fast enough so far? Unless you are going to bypass the ISPs entirely, and transmit directly from the server through these devices.
Stu, Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) is a new technology semiconductor.
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/13/2/9/1
From the article: “By replacing a fraction of the silicon atoms with germanium, it is possible to design a wide range of electronic devices that are faster than silicon and almost as cheap to manufacture.”