Terahertz Wireless Chip Will Bring 30Gbps Networks 177
MrSeb writes "Rohm, a Japanese semiconductor company, has created a silicon chip and antenna that's currently capable of transmitting 1.5Gbps, with the potential to scale up to 30Gbps in the future. While this is a lot faster than anything currently on the market, the significant advance here is the reception and transmission of terahertz waves (300GHz to 3THz) using a chip and antenna that's just two centimeters long. Rohm says it will only cost $5 when it comes to market in a few years — a stark comparison to current terahertz gear that's both large and expensive. The problem with terahertz transmissions, though, is that it's highly directional — with a submillimeter wavelength, it's more like a laser than a signal. Terahertz waves might enable awesome device-to-device networks, but it isn't going to bring 30Gbps internet to a whole city block. More interestingly, submillimeter terahertz radiation is the next step up from the gigahertz radiation used in full-body millimeter wave scanners. Terahertz waves can not only see through clothing, but can also penetrate a few millimeters of skin."
Getting tired of this.... (Score:1, Insightful)
We solved the energy crisis! It'll be out in a few years...
And now this! They'll be out in a few years...
You know what? While we're at it, lets say we'll have mind reading devices that make a mouse and keyboard obsolete in a few years too.
What about saturation? (Score:5, Insightful)
All the wireless tech in the world doesn't seem to be able to stand up against saturation in the band.
I say this, of course, as someone who lives in an apartment complex of 100's of units, all in close enough proximity that Wireless-N signals can be picked up pretty much anywhere in the complex from any users apartment. I had to forego wireless entirely and hard wire everything because every band was completely saturated with dozens of wireless networks. With the smart-switching shit that automatically looks for clean channels it's even worse; I've taken to illustrating the problem to friends at parties with the wifi scanner app on my phone, we all get a good laugh watching 10 networks bounce up and down the band constantly "Channel 1 is clean, quick, switch to channel 1! Shit, 9 other networks came with me...look, channel 3 is clean, quick, switch to channel 3! Fuck, they're following me! Channel 7 is clean, quick, switch to channel 7!!" all day long.
The wireless band is becoming way over saturated. Now that we have cars with built in hotspots it's going to get even worse. We need some sort of fundamental shift in the way we do wireless networking, either that, or we need to greatly expand the band and the range between channels so that 30 devices can cohabitate the same frequency range without completely fucking up throughput.