MANHASSET, N.Y. — The WiMedia Alliance board has endorsed the Multiband-OFDM Alliance's ultrawideband media-access control and physical layers as the foundation for its common radio platform for personal-area networking, EE Times has learned.
The action comes only two months after Intel Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc., both leading members of the MBOA, joined WiMedia as directors. With their entry, nine of the alliance's 11 directors are also members of the MBOA standards group.
Now that WiMedia has a clearer idea of what the media-access control and physical layer may look like, the group can now proceed to develop a convergence layer. Work on that crucial layer has been in limbo since the alliance's formation in 2002 because its characteristics depend to a large degree upon the MAC and PHY.
The decision has added even more momentum to the MB-OFDM UWB juggernaut while simultaneously casting a pall over the future of the direct-sequence ultrawideband alternative being offered by Motorola Inc. Motorola is one of WiMedia's founding members.
"This is yet another example of the MBOA's specification being certified and approved by the industry," said Michael Genossar, chief scientist at Adimos (Kfar Saba, Israel), a UWB startup and one of the 80-plus members of the MBOA. While Genossar cannot predict what will now happen within the IEEE 802.15.3a task group, he does see the MBOA's momentum as running along a parallel track to that of the IEEE task group, which he still considers to be an important effort. That group is still trying to decide between the MB-OFDM and DS-UWB proposals for a high-speed wireless interface reaching up to 480 Mbits/second.
WiMedia was formed to develop standards-based interoperability specifications for wireless personal-area networks, in much the same fashion as the Wi-Fi Alliance develops interoperability specifications for wireless LANs based on 802.11. WiMedia's founding members also included XtremeSpectrum Inc., the developer of DS-UWB. XSI was bought last year by lead investor Motorola.
While WiMedia initially intended to base its interoperability spec on the IEEE's 802.15.3 standard, that quickly changed, according to Glyn Roberts, president of WiMedia. "Companies had different visions, but it didn't take too long to see that everyone was focused on UWB-but that doesn't preclude 2.4 GHz [802.15.3] if it makes business sense."
Since its formation, however, WiMedia has made little to no progress in developing an interoperable radio platform, as members didn't see much point in developing a convergence platform without a clearly defined MAC and PHY, said Roberts, and resources were limited.
"Things started happening" about six months ago, Roberts said. In particular, the development of Wireless USB (W-USB) spurred the group to develop a common radio platform upon which it could operate. "The platform is an abstraction of the UWB PHY that has all of the services required by all of the different potential UWB users," said Roberts. Those services include security, discovery, association and connection management.
For its part, W-USB is the protocol adaptation layer that will make USB links compatible with UWB. "Also, the MAC/
PHY issue started to work itself out and the MBOA specification was starting to mature," he added. The alliance is also looking to adapt 1394 and UPnP links over UWB. "We're talking with the 1394 Trade Association, but it's a bit difficult," said Roberts, "as they typically work with established MAC/PHY standards-such as 802.15.3-and so right now it involves a lot of proprietary information exchange and NDA statements, so it'll take time."
In the meantime, said Roberts, the group has focused all its efforts over the last six months on developing the common radio platform. "Once you get the critical mass with experienced people that we have now, you can really make astounding progress."
However, one of the more important developments of recent weeks, according to Roberts, was the decision by Intel and Texas Instruments on Feb. 17 to join WiMedia, to which they "added their considerable resources," said Roberts.
There, TI and Intel joined fellow MBOA members-Alereon, Appairent Technologies, Hewlett-Packard, Philips, Samsung, Sharp and STMicroelectronics-on the WiMedia board of directors. As such, the decision to endorse the MBOA MAC/PHY late last Thursday, at an interim board of directors meeting, was not wholly unexpected.
That said, the decision has yet to be declared publicly. "Decisions made by the WiMedia Alliance board of directors are confidential until approved for release by the WiMedia Alliance. This information has not been approved for release at this time," said John Barr, director of standards realization at Motorola, and chairman of the IEEE 802.15.3 Task Group in an e-mail reply.
The next full-member WiMedia Alliance meeting will be held in Aix-en-Provence, France, in June.
