"GiFi" — Short-Range, 5-Gbps Wireless For $10/Chip 190
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? (Score:2, Insightful)
'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?
They stole my idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
WUSB (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pronunciation of Gi-Fi (Score:3, Insightful)
Routers (Score:3, Insightful)
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:3, Insightful)
2 Watts? (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
Typically, these types of networks measure power consumption in mW, not W.
Re:Bluetooth replacement? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pronunciation of Gi-Fi (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bluetooth replacement? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bluetooth replacement? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bluetooth replacement? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bluetooth replacement? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 press the "join my GiFi network" button. The new DVR shows up on your receiver as device 5 "Stanasonic DVR SNxxxx". The new centre channel speaker shows up as device 23 "Blose Centre Channel speaker SNxxxx". The projector shows up as device 1 "Blite-On Projector SNxxxx". It would be interesting to see if devices that don't require the complete bandwidth available would use less power - ie: speakers wouldn't utilize that bandwidth....
The average home office would benefit from the same technology. Anything that will fit comfortably within a 900 sq ft or smaller room - printer, spouse's computer, kid's computer, scanner, mouse, keyboard.
Perhaps there would be a seperate market for "secure GiFi" - that would involve buying or creating a 256bit encryption key on a small USB token - that would need to be attached to any new devices that you wish to join your SGiFi network.
At the end of the day, for $10 per device, there's a lot of simplicity to be gained here.
Re:Latency? (Score:2, Insightful)
Prototype available now (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Bluetooth replacement? (Score:3, Insightful)