Manhasset, N.Y. — An alliance led by Intel Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc. will propose this week an ultrawideband-based standard for high-speed, short-range wireless communications. Despite the alliance's big-name backing, standardization of its proposal by the IEEE is far from certain.
An IEEE 802.15.3a task group in San Francisco will evaluate the Multiband-OFDM Alliance's proposal and numerous others. A thicket of issues ranging from technical merit to royalties, time-to-market, FCC compliance and market positioning will likely churn with the inevitable member politicking, rendering the outcome anybody's guess.
But growing pressure from both consumer electronics and PC companies could bring a quicker decision on ultrawideband (UWB) than other IEEE standards efforts have received, especially those for 802.11, on which Wi-Fi wireless LANs are based.
"The TI and Intel merger is a powerful force that will form the critical mass to really set UWB on track," said Martin Reynolds, an analyst who examines future technologies for Gartner Dataquest Inc.
The IEEE 802.15.3a group will have to decide on a standard that allows for high-speed (up to 480 Mbits/second), low-power, short-range wireless communications among multiple connected devices. Dropouts and merged proposals have compressed an original field of more than 30 proposals from a who's who of semiconductor PC and consumer electronics companies since the February submission deadline.
"This is going inordinately fast through the IEEE process vs. 802.11," said Stephen Wood, strategic-marketing manager with Intel's R&D division. "What's different about it is that we were able to get a group of people to work cooperatively very early-both on- and offline-so this has accelerated the process."
The Multiband-OFDM Alliance brings TI under the same umbrella as the 14 members of the original Intel-led UWB Multiband Coalition, thinning the field of ultrawideband proposals. This leaves the partnership of Motorola Inc. and longtime ultrawideband proponent XtremeSpectrum Inc. (XSI) as the staunchest opposition to the new Intel/TI alliance. In-
dependent proposals, including those from Mitsubishi, Oki Electric and STMicroelectronics, are also being considered by the .15.3a group.
The Motorola/XSI partnership will rely on XSI's advantage of having ultrawideband chip sets available now, giving it a leg up in the standards process.
"TI and Intel's proposal is paper, simulations, analysis," said Chris Fisher, vice president of marketing at XSI. "Won't
see silicon for two to three years. Intel is still trying to build 802.11 silicon, for God's sake, never mind something as bleeding edge as UWB." Fisher said consumer companies are pressing for products today. Five companies — Sony, Philips, Samsung, Panasonic and Sharp — will express that interest in a presentation, he said.
But basing a standard on a single company's technology raises issues of royalties, which Reynolds said the industry will not tolerate, given the volumes at stake. Mindful of the royalty issue, XSI told the IEEE this past week that it will offer access to any relevant intellectual property in its selected standard on a "reasonable and nondiscriminatory" basis.
That's not enough, Reynolds said. "There are billions at stake here. For a technology as important as this, they have to make it zero [royalties]."
Multiband Alliance members have "collectively agreed not to pursue royalties," an Intel spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail response to a query on royalties. The lack of royalties could give the Multiband Alliance's proposal an edge before the .15.3a group.
But a TI spokeswoman did not rule out royalties, saying only that the Multiband Alliance would meet the IEEE's requirements for fair and reasonable access to its proposal's technology, then evaluate its options with the goal of ensuring the technology's rapid adoption.
