New High Speed Wireless Chipset from IBM

YesSir writes to tell us IBM scientists are reporting that they have created a new low-cost wireless chipset that could allow devices to communicate up to ten times faster than current technology. From the article: "Using the IBM-pioneered chip-making technology called silicon germanium, the chipset is able to send and receive information in a portion of the radio spectrum that is both unlicensed and can carry a much higher volume of data, a key advantage as data-intensive digital media formats, such as HDTV, become more pervasive."

Comments

Re:How long before the FCC closes "the IBM hole"?

[Wesley Felter]

60GHz signals are absorbed by oxygen (much like 2.4GHz is absorbed by water), so the FCC figured that frequency must be useless and the public might as well be allowed to play with it.

Frequency allocation.

[gositz]

Only a part of the spectrum mentioned in the article (from 30-300 GHz) is 'unlicensed', and it is all 'allocated' to some use. A very informative chart can be found at: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf The bottom row shows the allocation of frequency space from 30-300 GHz. Dense to say the least.

O2 absorption

[chihowa]

Molecular oxygen is paramagnetic. It's explained by the permanent magnetic moment caused by the two unpaired electrons.

Quoth JH Van Vleck: "Even though electrically non-polar, oxygen gas absorbs microwaves because the magnetic moment of the O2 molecule interacts with electromagnetic fields." The Absorption of Microwaves by Oxygen

So molecular oxygen is an exception to the generally true assumption that a molecule needs to be polar to absorb EM radiation.