RF Special Section

The following information-packed pages will focus on RF design issues in two emerging wireless networking technologies: HomeRF and Bluetooth.

We chose to focus on these two technologies because of their "sex appeal" and because of the fact that late 2000 is the timeframe for prototypes of these de facto standards-based products to hit the market. Additionally, these two technologies are often pitted against each other as competing for the home network. As you will see from these articles, the technologies have two very different uses. This can be explained by the loose federations of companies who created them. For example, Ericsson and other mobile handset/computer manufacturers came up with the Bluetooth concept, and, therefore, it will be targeted towards the mobile handheld market. HomeRF was conceived by the home PC market, and is thus more aptly pitted against HomePNA (the home phoneline association, read: wired) technology for connecting the entire home.

There are considerable RF/physical layer design issues associated with these technologies represented in the following articles. Don't forget the final Trends page of this section which gives some analyst numbers for the future of these technologies as well as for WLAN (802.11) usage. As expected, the analysts are wild about these technologies. But the design articles shed the real light on the difficulties of these emerging technologies. Enjoy!

–Nicole Westmoreland