"GiFi" — Short-Range, 5-Gbps Wireless For $10/Chip

mickq writes "The Age reports that Melbourne scientists have built and demonstrated tiny CMOS chips, 5 mm per side, that can transmit 5 Gbps over short distances — about 10 m. The chip features a tiny 1-mm antenna, a power amp that is only a few microns wide, and power consumption of only 2 W. 'GiFi' appears set to revolutionize short-distance data transmission, and transmits in the relatively uncrowded 60GHz range. Best of all, the chip is only about a year away from public release, and will only cost around US $9.20 to produce."

Bluetooth replacement?

[Atlantis-Rising (857278)]

At first blush, it seems like this is a bluetooth replacement, until you look at the cost of the chips- almost ten dollars per unit! Wowza- that means it'll cost $15 to put it in anything.

'Course, I don't know how expensive bluetooth chips are per unit, but I expect they're cheaper than that- especially with all the tiny USB bluetooth receivers you can find floating around for $19.99 and under these days.

That said, what else would it really replace or be used in?

Re:Bluetooth replacement?

[TripMaster Monkey (862126)]

I believe BlueTooth's max transmission rate is 2.1 Mb/sec (for BlueTooth 2.0). 5 Gb/sec > 2.1 Mb/sec.

USB 1.1 adapters are pretty cheap, too...how much are they being used today?

Re:Bluetooth replacement?

[Atlantis-Rising (857278)]

True, but all USB 1.1 gizmos are backwards compatible with USB 2.0, and this is hardly backwards compatible with Bluetooth.

In this case you have a totally different standard that appears to be competing not so much in the PAN area but in the wireless-USB area, and in that respect I see it competing with UWB and WUSB. However, WUSB is only 480 Mbits per second...

That said, at the moment, WUSB seems to be a solution looking for a problem; which leads back to my original issue. Where is this going to come in handy at this price point? Nobody's going to pay upwards of $35 for a glorified USB cable.

Re:Bluetooth replacement?

[samkass (174571)]

At this data rate, this appears to be not so much competing with the keyboard/mouse/printer USB connector than it does the DVI video connector. Now all we need is some of Tesla's magic to transmit the electricity wirelessly and we're home free.

Prototype available now

[morcheeba (260908)]

I've been working on a totally wireless monitor for years, and I've almost got the solution - details here [wikipedia.org].

To make it the most efficient, I use a directed beam of energy. I also pre-convert that energy to photons before sending it, so that the monitor won't have to waste energy doing the conversion. I also pre-modulate the signal spatially so that I only send the energy needed -- again, another win for efficiency.

Re:

[ceoyoyo (59147)]

You're kidding, right? Stick one of these in your laptop, then have one that's a dongle (at first) that you can plug into a USB 2(+) port. Instant FAST wireless. Then these will start getting built into things like digital cameras, monitors, etc. Bluetooth is way too slow for any decent digital camera. USB is a pain in many cases. Personally I use a Firewire card reader, and frequently wish it would go faster. 5 Gbps? Yes please. Will I pay $30 for it? Or $50? Definitely. Not that the price won'

Re:

[gad_zuki! (70830)]

Yeah but blutooth is only a couple of mbps and in practice seems to be much more susceptible to interference. The few times I've tried to use it for large data transfers have been pretty slow. Its just easier to grab a usb cable.

Right now there's a sort of race to come up with a bluetooth replacement. UWB, wireless USB, etc are the things this product wants to compete with.

Re:

[esocid (946821)]

I would think household wireless routers could utilize this since most small-medium sized houses will have a radius of about 10m from the router, or even businesses that would rather have an indoor WiFi(GiFi) available to customers rather than broadcasting outside of their building.

Re:Bluetooth replacement?

[CastrTroy (595695)]

Not a bad idea. But I wonder how much at 10 m is affected by walls. I also wonder how much it's affected by interference from cordless phones and other wireless devices. Usually when they say the range is 10m, the actual usable distance is half that, and only when there's no walls.

Re:Bluetooth replacement?

[petecarlson (457202)]

Walls? Forget about it. This is 60GHz your talking about. Good luck getting it out of the case you put the chip in let alone through a wall, your body, or too much oxygen.

Re:

[Reo Strong (661900)]

It's basic RF. The higher the frequency, the worse the penetration. 700MHz and 900MHz go through just about everything (except dirt and metal). 2.4GHz (802.11b/g) can go through wood panels, drywall, and some forms of metal (not many). I don't know what the mathematical description is for the ratio of frequency vs rates of absorption/penetration, but it gets pretty bad at about 5.8GHz (802.11a). I can't imagine what it is at 60GHz and only 2W of output power.

Linky [cisco.com]
"Indoor wave propagation is also a

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

If you're giving it away to your coffee shop customers then being stopped by walls could be a good thing.

Re:

[*weasel (174362)]

... who cares?

This isn't a wifi replacement -at all-. This is a wireless USB replacement and then some.

At 5Gbps you'd have enough throughput to put a hypothetical smartphone on your desk, and not only use your desktop monitor/keyboard/mouse for comfort, but to be able to use your desktop's processor and ram to accelerate the apps that still basically 'live' on your phone.

So imagine a setting where work data is coming off the network, personal settings and user data are coming off your phone, and desktop wo

Re:

[avronius (689343)]

Think of a [slightly] different market...

Most home theatres have a common issue. Rats nest of cables for the various components. RCA/HDCP/HDMI/Optical/etc. to connect a myriad of components - XBoxn, Wii, Playstationn, receiver, amplifier, DVR, speakers x7, television, htpc, remote control. If you could increase the cost of each of these devices by $10 to eliminate the requirement for cables... you could simplify the installation procedures and improve the "ease of use" factor. Take it out of the box, and pr

Re:Bluetooth replacement?

[squizzar (1031726)]

It consumes two watts of power. It is not a Bluetooth replacement. Using my phone for comparison: 1100mAh 3.7 V 3.7V / 2W = 1.85 A 1.1 Ah / 1.85 A = 0.59 Hours = approx. 36 Minutes. I know it won't be transmitting the whole time, but essentially this will be useless in a mobile application.

Re:Bluetooth replacement?

[ElGanzoLoco (642888)]

That said, what else would it really replace or be used in?

Short-range wireless video transmission, for one. From your IPTV box to your TV(s).

Case in point: at home, we just ditched cable and DSL and switched to an optic fibre triple-play (internet/IP TV/telephone) offer, which is much cheaper. For technical reasons the main receiver box can only be located near our entrance door, while the TV sits at the other side of the house.

Out of three possible solutions, none work well:
-laying an ethernet cable in the ceiling is possible, but a headache
-IP over the power lines is unreliable
-WiFi, regardless of the flavor, doesn't provide enough bandwidth (keep in mind that the box streams several HDTV channels at once, for instance when recording one while watching another)

So in our case, the proposed chip and protocol sounds ideal. 10m doesn't seem like a lot, but it's more than enough to cover most apartments / houses, and I expect it will be possible to get signal at much greater distances, with degraded signal. 2.5Gbps over 20m, wirelessly, would rock.

They stole my idea!

[by Anonymous Coward]

I took out a patent for an electronic device that sends signals and has the number 10 in it! Those bloody Aussies stole my idea! I'll see you in Texas court!

WUSB

[red star hardkore (1242136)]

So WUSB is going to be made redundant before it even becomes mainstream?

Pronunciation of Gi-Fi

[xdc (8753)]

How do you pronounce Gi-Fi? "guy-fie"? "giffy"? "jiffy"?

Re:

[provigilman (1044114)]

They should probably just make it "G-Fi" (pronounced as 'gee-fi') in order to avoid that confusion.

Re:

[rvw (755107)]

How do you pronounce Gi-Fi? "guy-fie"? "giffy"? "jiffy"?

I think: Goofy! Then it can even apply to wireless fetching of your shoes.

Re:

[Stanistani (808333)]

>>How do you pronounce Gi-Fi? "guy-fie"? "giffy"? "jiffy"?
>I think: Goofy! Then it can even apply to wireless fetching of your shoes.

Wouldn't that be Pluto?

Of course, Goofy is an amiable guy - he'd probably say "Golly, gee, Mickey! Hyuck!" ...and get them for you.

Re:

[SharpFang (651121)]

yiffy

Re:

[esocid (946821)]

My vote would be for (Gy as in Gyro) Gi-Fi.

Re:

[CastrTroy (595695)]

Yes, because "Gyro" has no alternate pronunciations. I've hear Gyro (in reference to the sandwich) be pronounced in no less than 4 ways. Including Jiro, Yiro, Giro (with a hard G), and Hiro (no kidding).

Re:Pronunciation of Gi-Fi

[poot_rootbeer (188613)]

How do you pronounce Gi-Fi?

Since the abbreviation is derived from "Wi-Fi", and before that "Hi-Fi", I take it that they all rhyme, therefore Gi-Fi would be pronounced "guy - fye".

And it is short for "guygabit fydelity".

Re:

[PrescriptionWarning (932687)]

sounds like a lame joke that Seinfeld would make

We need a free version

[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

If you use the proprietary GiFi protocol you may end up getting into patent trouble.
We should create our own standard which does what we need and is not covered by existing patents.

I suggest we call this protocol PnGi.

A lot going around

[bandersnatch (176074)]

And this is different from these others... how exactly?

http://www.vubiq.com/news.php [vubiq.com]
http://gigaom.com/2008/02/20/60-ghz60-second-hd-movie-downloads/ [gigaom.com]
http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/Research/RF/ogre_project/ [berkeley.edu]

Routers

[esocid (946821)]

I would hope that this drops the price of wireless routers from what they are now, about US$60? The only drawback I could see is how the signal is transmitted through materials, as I live in a three story townhouse and I have a room in the furnished basement. I have a Wireless-G router that I have had no trouble with but from the article it says it is for short distances /= 10m with a 60GHz frequency. I would assume this is a high enough frequency to penetrate most household materials including any cement or cinderblocks. I'm all for it since most routers today just create a lot of noise and/or interference and confuse the laptop I have for some reason.

Re:

[esocid (946821)]

That was supposed to be (less than/= 10m). That'll teach me to preview even if I don't use html.

Re:

[kd5ujz (640580)]

Thats correct. Higher frequencies are more suceptable to reflection by anthing larger than the wavelength. Thats why this device usese a 1cm antenna. This thing will be mostly line of sight.

"GiFi"???

[gstoddart (321705)]

Wow, do we ever abuse these words.

From "Hi-Fi" (High Fidelity) to "Wi-Fi" (Wireless, but the Fi sounds cool and people vaguely know what you mean) to "GiFi" as gigabit wireless, you've basically lost the actual underlying words.

It almost seems like the whole "Fi" part is now just generally meaning "technology thingy".

So, is a baker PieFi? A politician LieFi? Someone, please, stop the madness. :-P

Cheers

Re:

[Bill Wong (583178)]

Wi-Fi stands for Wireless Fidelity as per the Wi-Fi Alliance. [wikipedia.org]

Wow

[eclectro (227083)]

This thing does so much, that if anything can get me a date, this chip can.

Re:

[gstoddart (321705)]

This thing does so much, that if anything can get me a date, this chip can.

Oh, I'm sorry, didn't you get the memo? Believing a chip will get you a date disqualifies you from getting a date.

The women updated the rules again.

Cheers

Re:

[DeadChobi (740395)]

They do that every time we discover one of their rules. It keeps us on our toes, as well as providing them with hours of entertainment as they describe our latest fuckup to all their friends and coworkers.

Wireless Mouse

[Spazmania (174582)]

OKay, so I can seriously power up my wireless mouse. What else is it good for?

Re:

[pushing-robot (1037830)]

Wireless HDTV (and computer monitors). Imagine a home theater system sans AV cables.

And wireless 5Gbit networking would be awesome, even if you did need a tiny repeater every 30 feet.

Translation

[Anita Coney (648748)]

"Best of all, the chip is only about a year away from public release, and will only cost around US $9.20 to produce"

To translate: This is vaporware, it may never be released in our lifetime, it may never actually work, and I have no fricken clue as to what it will actually cost.

Only Cost $9.20 to Produce...

[eno2001 (527078)]

...and will cost $500 to get in your grubby paws. That is until the amazing powers of supply and demand take effect and the price drops over an unjustifiable period of time. The demand for 5G wireless will be huge...

Re:

[IndustrialComplex (975015)]

If it costs $500, then the demand will probably not be as huge as you imagine.

Trademark Infringement

[DogAlmity (664209)]

There's already a gay internet cafe near my house called Guy-Fi, and I think they're gonna be pissed.

2 Watts?

[Undead Ed (1068120)]

I don't think so.

The dimensions that are discussed are unrealistic when considering heat dissipation let alone power conduction at that scale.

Further, it is a far cry from ideal lab results to real world conditions with the myriad of problems facing super high frequency technology!

I smell a rain dance - a promotional announcement to attract financial angels.

Ed

huge power consumption

[cerelib (903469)]

His chip uses only a tiny one-millimetre-wide antenna and less than two watts of power

Typically, these types of networks measure power consumption in mW, not W.

Re:

[josh82 (894884)]

"His chip uses only a tiny one-millimetre-wide antenna and less than two watts of power"

"Typically, these types of networks measure power consumption in mW, not W."

All right: two thousand milliwatts then, smartass.

GiFi?

[sm62704 (957197)]

Short for "GirlFriend"? Ok, I was joking there but I'm still wondering what in the hell the "fi" is for. WiFi the Wi is "wide" and GiFi the Gi is obviously "gigabit". The old "HiFi" stood for "high fidelity".

WTF does "Fi" stand for in WiFi and GiFi?

Re:

[tolan-b (230077)]

Here's some more info. Yep it's just a brand name. The WIFi alliance referred to it in slogans as wireless fidelity though, even though it doesn't mean anything, and apparently now they're trying to backtrack on it.

http://www.teleclick.ca/2005/12/what-is-the-true-meaning-of-wi-fi/ [teleclick.ca]

Hotspots

[Tarlus (1000874)]

So if local coffee shops offer internet access with one of these, they can advertise that they have wireless G-spots!

Re:

[Guysmiley777 (880063)]

With a range of 10 meters this will not be a replacement for normal broadband.