"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."

Comments

Bluetooth replacement?

[Atlantis-Rising]

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?

[petecarlson]

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:Bluetooth replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Bluetooth replacement?

[squizzar]

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]

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.

Re:Bluetooth replacement?

[avronius]

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 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:Bluetooth replacement?

[ceoyoyo]

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't come down when the things are in everything.

They stole my idea!

[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]

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

Re:Pronunciation of Gi-Fi

[provigilman]

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

Routers

[esocid]

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.

Translation

[Anita Coney]

"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]

...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...

2 Watts?

[Undead Ed]

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]

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:Pronunciation of Gi-Fi

[CastrTroy]

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:Latency?

[p3d0]

This is one of the dumbest replies I have ever seen.

Prototype available now

[morcheeba]

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

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.