GEDC Researchers Achieve 10Gbps Wireless Transmission Speeds

A World First — 10 Gigabit-per-second $2.00 wireless interface developed by Prof. Joy Laskar and Dr. Stephane Pinel.

ATLANTA (April 25, 2006) — Researchers at the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC), recently established a new world record for the highest data rate transmitted wirelessly at 60GHz.

The new benchmarks were achieved and demonstrated during the GEDC Spring Review event held on April 24-25 at the Technology Square Research Building on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

GEDC researchers achieved a peak data transfer rate of 10 Gigabit/s at a distance of 1 meter, 7 Gigabit/s at a distance of 2.5 meters and 5 Gigabit/s at a distance of 5 meters.

"This achievement empowers the next revolution of ultra-high capacity wireless interconnect," said Gerhard Fettweis, Chief Scientist at Philips Semiconductors. "These speeds should set the requirements of the emerging IEEE 802.15.3c standard."

As one of the hottest areas of wireless communications, the Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) -- standardized by the IEEE802.15 WG -- addresses the delivery of information over relatively short distances ("Piconet") among relatively few participants.

The demand for the ultra-high data rate wireless capability of such systems is increasing daily, thanks to the emergence of many multimedia applications.

The research efforts led by Dr. Stephane Pinel and Prof. Laskar have been focused on the development of CMOS fully integrated 60GHz multi-gigabit radio chips, co-designed with an innovative low-cost organic-based 3D integrated module technology.

Pinel and Laskar contend that the size of the 60GHz radio is compatible with its integration in the tip of a memory stick for about $2.

Vijay Nair, Principal Engineer at Intel, said the impact of this discovery on the future of wireless devices would be "hard to overestimate. This is the kind of bandwidth that leapfrogs current wireless data rates and will create new market opportunities for devices requiring short-range wireless connectivity. The 60GHz spectrum represents a significant opportunity to meet future requirements for short-range wireless standards."

The 60GHz spectrum, he said, represents the most appropriate band to meet the requirements of the emerging IEEE 802.15.3c standard for WPAN applications.

In addition, the team is also focused on research efforts on robustness enhancement architecture development (human shadowing resistance, improved Bit-Error-Rate to 10e-12).

Thanks to the participation of numerous industrial partners, the multi-gigabit wireless testbed at GEDC has received major investments in resources and infrastructure, such as a fully integrated S-parameter/noise/load-pull characterization system from 2GHz up to 110GHz.

Lee H. Goldberg, senior technical editor at AnalogZone.com, said that "the availability of several GHz bandwidth unlicensed ISM bands in the 60GHz spectrum represents a major opportunity to overcome the current limitations of alternative solutions such as 802.11n and UWB."

Many other commercial applications will directly benefit from this advance. These include high-data-rate Wireless Multimedia Access, compact Wireless Gigabit Ethernet and Wireless FireWire/IEEE-1394 links that can ultimately be directly combined with a fiber or cable backhaul network.