The IEEE’S recent decision to allow competing ultra-wideband standards in the marketplace has not deterred investors, but could spell trouble for the Bluetooth industry, which last year hooked its future to the UWB standard.
The IEEE group voted unanimously at a meeting in Waikoloa, Hawaii, to scrap a common standard for UWB. After three years of wrangling, the UWB Forum and the WiMedia Alliance agreed to disagree on a standard.
“We concur that, at this stage in UWB market development, a more prudent course of action is necessary to allow the market to move forward with the commercialization of multiple UWB technologies,” the sparring factions said in a joint statement.
UWB is set to take Bluetooth technology to its next generation. While Bluetooth works well at transmitting data at speeds up to 3 megabits per second between devices within 10 meters of each other, UWB is designed to transmit data between devices at distances of up to 10 yards apart while delivering data rates of up to 480 Mbps. The platform is attractive for converging home applications, particularly video, and has gained the support of major semiconductor manufacturers.
The UWB Forum, led by Motorola Corp. and its spinoff Freescale Semiconductor Inc., is promoting a personal-computer-minded approach that aims to replace USB cables with wireless peripherals. The group says its Cable-Free USB standard is designed to work with existing computers and won’t require upgrades or new software. The technology works over high-speed radio signals, spreading the signal across the entire frequency.
The WiMedia Alliance supports technology that divides the spectrum used by UWB into 14 separate bands and transmits over them simultaneously. Backers include Intel Corp, Texas Instruments Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Wisair, a UWB and wireless USB chipset maker.
Just a few days after the dissolution of the IEEE UWB task group, Wisair announced it secured $20 million in its latest round of funding. Apax Partners led the round, and was joined by new investor Tomen Electronics as well as other strategic investors.
Wisair said it plans to use the cash to transition to “volume production and broad market expansion.” The company said the funding came about as a result of demonstrating its Wireless USB Hub reference design at January’s Consumer Electronics Show.
“Wisair is at an exciting juncture in its growth as it has already created significant penetration in the market, with more than 80 customers adopting our development systems and reference designs that are based on our industry-proven chipsets,” said David Yaish, president and chief executive officer of Wisair. “With the new funds, we can continue to focus on expanding our sales channels and move to production shipment of our chipsets.”
Even before the collapse of the IEEE’s standards effort, UWB chipmaker Staccato Communications received $18 million in its third round of funding. Intel Capital’s Digital Home Fund and Vision Capital led the round, while the company’s existing investors Allegis Capital, Bay Partners, Charles River Ventures and Interwest Partners also participated.
Staccato introduced its new Ripcord family of products at the CES show, saying the wares would be available by mid-year. Of course, several UWB chipset vendors demonstrated similar capabilities at previous CES events with similar soon-to-be-available promises, only to see those dates come and go.
“The coming era of UWB and wireless USB promises greater ease of use and simplicity for connecting PC platforms, traditional PC peripherals, mobile communications platforms and consumer electronic devices, such as digital cameras and personal media players,” said Scott Darling, vice president of Intel Capital.
Freescale too is ready to let things play out in the marketplace.
“Unfortunately, IEEE as a venue/process has not been able to deliver a standard for UWB,” stated Martin Rofheart, director of the UWB operation at Freescale. “Ideally, IEEE would have created specifications for an MB-OFDM solution and a DS-UWB solution that industry groups could pull from as they would any other components. While it is unfortunate that this did not happen, we believe meaningful standards are ultimately made by the market. While WiMedia has focused on delivering a completely new wireless solution called `Certified Wireless USB,’ Freescale has launched our Cable-Free initiative focused on leveraging the installed base of wired connectivity standards based on USB, 1394 and others. The fact that Freescale partners such as Belkin, who themselves own over half the worldwide USB cable business, have announced product based on our Cable-Free USB is testament to the validity of our approach.”
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group said it has not aligned with either UWB group exclusively, saying it’s working with the technology as a whole, evaluating both flavors of UWB to help the market determine the most advantageous solution.
“A technology does not need the IEEE stamp of approval to be successful; Bluetooth technology is proof of that-it was created outside of IEEE and then received its stamp of approval later in the technology’s life,” stated Mike Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG. “In order to be successful, UWB must partner with Bluetooth technology-the combination allows manufacturers to leverage past investments, utilize the Bluetooth brand, ensure backwards compatibility, overcome regulatory hurdles and ultimately speed deployment. … By creating a version of the Bluetooth specification that combines these two short-range technologies, we will create a win-win situation for everyone.”
With products set to appear in stores in early 2007, consumers ultimately will have to determine which UWB standard best suits their needs.
“Consumers will be relatively well protected,” said Stephen Wood, president of WiMedia. “A large percentage of the industry already agrees on a standard.”
