Transmitting high definition video around the home wirelessly is a key application for the consumer electronics business, and has become a battleground between several would-be standards. UltraWideBand solutions are on the back burner, at least for now (WiMedia is subsumed into Wireless USB, and higher speed options like Pulse~Link’s C-Wave have not gained traction). This technology may return, but recently the main contenders have been WirelessHD, WiGig and WHDI, with the IEEE’s 802.15.3c draft standard a wild card.
Increasingly, the most probable unifying factor is set to be high speed Wi-Fi, especially in the 60GHz license-exempt band, especially if it succeeds in integrating other platforms. A two-horse race between Wi-Fi/WiGig and WirelessHD became more likely recently when Sony backed away from WHDI and its main technology provider, Amimon, and embraced WirelessHD. The start-up will now refocus on being a provider of IP to Wi-Fi chipmakers, aiming to get WHDI integrated with WLans.
In May, the IEEE 802.11’s VHT (Very High Throughput) study group evolved into a body called WiGig, founded by players like Intel, Broadcom, Dell, Microsoft and Atheros and including the handset top three and phone chipmakers like Marvell and MediaTek. This group has a set of specifications 80% complete and could have them commercialized by the end of 2010, supporting 6Gbps transmission over short 60GHz links. But WiGig also hopes to leverage the ubiquity of Wi-Fi, and the overlap between its membership and that of other groups, to go a step further and create a unified umbrella platform. This could avoid the market split that helped ruin the early UWB efforts, when the 802.15.3 committee was divided between proposals from WiMedia (led by Intel and Texas Instruments) and Freescale ‘ this led WiMedia to take its standard elsewhere, to ECMA.
The 802.15.3 committee remains a complicating factor. Two weeks ago, it ratified its 15.3c standard, targeted at very high speed personal area networks. This builds on the existing 15.3 platform but adapts it for 60GHz ‘millimeter wave’ networks, creating a new physical layer for the earlier 2003 standard. It uses technology from start-up SiBeam, which is also a cornerstone of WirelessHD, whose main focus is wireless HDMI. This could overlap with WiGig and others in the in-home and handset spaces, and has already had various disputes with the VHT group over respective spheres of influence (the IEEE does not permit two competing standards efforts to run). The best outcome might be to run a WiGig MAC on the 802.15.3c PHY but this is by no means a given.
However, WiGig does seek to draw all the efforts together, especially if it can come to an accommodation with 15.3c and with the big CE supporters of WirelessHD, notably Sony and Philips. Intel has called for a unified base standard, using WiGig/Wi-Fi, that can then be implemented in different ‘use case profiles’ ‘ for PC-peripheral connectivity, HD video and handsets, perhaps. The WiGig spec uses a range of protocol adaptation layers to target different applications, a technique also used by the WiMedia UWB platform. Layers for WiGig include whole home video over 10 meter ranges, to wireless HDMI, to low power gigabit links over five meters for cellphones. Atheros expects tri-band products, supporting 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi plus 60GHz, to emerge. This is likely to be the secret of WiGig’s success ‘ like Bluetooth, embracing future iterations of Wi-Fi rather than competing with them, and so reducing the cost and risk for manufacturers of including new capabilities in consumer electronics gear and even phones.
In effect, Amimon’s change of direction means WHDI is coming closer to Wi-Fi and has less chance of succeeding as a standard in its own right. The Israeli company’s technology delivers uncompressed HDTV through walls to multiple rooms simultaneously, using the 5GHz band also used by Wi-Fi. While it will continue to develop that platform, it will focus mainly on IPR. It had been supported by Sony, but the Japanese giant has designed Amimon’s video modems out of its latest LCD TV designs, according to EETimes, and is now using WirelessHD in 60GHz. Apparently, Amimon was not ready in time with an 1080p HD version of WHDI, though its current technology was implemented in the Sony Bravia ZX-1 TV. Panasonic and LG have also embraced WirelessHD and SiBeam chips.
The smaller firm has responded by shifting its focus from TVs to PCs and to licensing out its video modem technology as IP to ‘a leading Wi-Fi chip company’. EETimes has learned of the negotiations that are underway, though no deal has yet been signed with the unnamed silicon player.
The vision is that OEMs will get WHDI by default when they purchase Wi-Fi chips, and Amimon points out that the solution will come far more cheaply when produced by major silicon vendors with the economies of scale of 5GHz WLans. Co-founder Noam Geri says the aim is still to sell directly into some sectors – “We are not turning ourselves into an IP company. We are, however, willing to give up certain markets to make this happen.” Amimon’s video modems use MIMO to boost range and data rate, and Joint Source Channel Coding (JSCC) to prioritize video components according to their importance. Geri believes WHDI will still be far superior to WirelessHD to enable multiroom HD video delivery because of the range restrictions in 60GHz.
For now, it hopes to see WHDI penetrating notebooks and even, in future, handsets, and believes this would then lure CE manufacturers back to the fold. The key will be to sign up that first Wi-Fi giant. Amimon introduced its first WHDI modules today for netbooks and notebooks, in a mini-PCI or standard PCI Display-Mini card form factor. These cards can deliver uncompressed 1080p/60Hz HD content throughout the home, says the vendor, which expects WHDI PCs to be in the market next year.