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NEWS FROM THE BLUETOOTH™ AND SHORT RANGE RF ENVIRONMENT ISSUE 78

IN INCISOR THIS MONTHWelcome to the largest ever issue of Incisor magazine.

Our extended editorial reflects a number of very positivedevelopments. First, Incisor has two new cover sponsors. Wewould like to take this opportunity to welcome Frontline TestEquipment, whose products are used by wireless developersacross the world to ensure conformance, interoperability andquality of user experience, and Staccato Communications,one of the companies at the forefront of developments inUltrawideband, and a founder company of the MBOA Alliance.

These two companies will help Incisor deliver qualityinformation over the coming months, coupled with theirunique insight concerning industry developments. Journalistsaren’t allowed into many industry events, and so wethoroughly appreciate our sponsor’s ability to recount andcomment upon events, developments and announcements inthe wireless world.

And the other main reason for the increased size of thismonth’s issue? That would be our Ultrawideband specialfocus. Whether by good luck or judgement (!), Incisor’s reviewtook place at a watershed point for UWB. With a dramaticincrease in activity, and a focal point of the ConsumerElectronics Show in Las Vegas, this was the perfect time tosee where this exciting, high bandwidth and low powertechnology was going. We hope you enjoy this feature.

Next month, Incisor looks at the world of ZigBee, where the organising Alliance has recently announced that its spechas been finalised. If you are a ZigBee company, we shouldbe talking!

Vince Holton • Publisher/Editor-in-chiefEmail: vholton@click.co.uk • Tel: +44 (0)1730 895614

Features:Bluetooth industry news . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2-5

BlueCore host software gains powerful new profiles:Carsten Anderson, CSR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Introducing Frontline Test EquipmentNew sponsor profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7-8

Driving the ultra low power RF marketCoronis Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9-10

Ultrawideband focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12-29

Seeking the path to UWB enlightenmentIncisor review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12-16

Introducing Staccato Communications New sponsor profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Can UWB achieve regulatory approval outside the USA?Examining the UK regulator’s report . . . . . . . . .19-21

Sony embraces UWB - Incisor interviews Head of Sony’s European Technology standards office . .22-23

UWB – As fear turns to greedMark Bowles, Staccato Communications . . . . . . . .24

Wireless industry newsZigBee, NFC, RFID, WLAN/WiFi . . . . . . . . . . . . .32-34

Interactive directory of wireless companies . . . .35

Wireless industry calendar of events . . . . . . . . . .36

Staccato Communications worked withIntel and Philips to create a WirelessUniversal Serial Bus (WUSB) demonstrationfor the Wireless USB Promoter Group booth inthe MBOA Ultrawideband TechZone at CES.For the demonstration, Staccato enabled thedemonstration with its radio developmentplatform based upon its single-chip all-CMOSMBOA architecture. Philips provided theMBOA MAC and Wireless USB hardware, andIntel supplied its Wireless USB host-wire-adapter software.

USB is generally accepted to have been ahugely well accepted standard for high-speeddata transfer – more than one billion ports withan additional 3.5 billion interfaces forecast toship by 2006. The defacto standard for personalconnectivity of PCs, USB is migrating intoconsumer electronics and mobile devices. Thefast growing camera phone segment is quicklyadopting USB to facilitate downloadingphotographs as well as connecting to PCs. ButUSB has always needed a cable – not cool in this day and age. Wireless USB is the nextevolution of the USB 2.0 specification, and offerswireless transfer of speeds up to 480Mbps and isfully backward compatible with the existinginstalled base.

“This advanced demonstration shows thatopen standards and industry cooperation work.By combining Staccato’s proficiency in all-CMOSwireless solutions with Intel’s knowledge andcommitment in USB and Philips’ expertise inwireless USB hardware, consumers can see that

the technology is real and know that products areon the way,” said Paul Marino, VP and GeneralManager, Connectivity, Philips Semiconductors.“Philips has a long history of leadership in USB,and this demonstration will help to show theevolution from the wired to the wireless standard,which will bring greater simplicity and mobility toend users.”

“By teaming with Philips, a recognized leaderin USB devices, Staccato is able to show theresults of its achievements in architecting single-chip, all-CMOS solutions,” said Dr. Roberto Aiello,CEO and President, Staccato Communications.“We are promoting high levels of integratedsolutions, modules that benefit from all-CMOSarchitectures, namely by enabling high-volume,low-cost product offerings.”

USB is ubiquitous. It is hard to see howwireless USB, with underlying UWB technology,and the weight of companies like Intel, Philips,Staccato and other partners behind it, can fail tobecome equally widely used.

Staccato, Intel, Philipsdemo Wireless USB

MBOA TechZone well populated at CES

See inside this issue for Incisor’s special focus section onUltra Wideband

Bluetooth industry news

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CSR is shipping in volume its BlueCore4-external Bluetooth solution, saying that this is theonly Bluetooth solution currently qualified andavailable for enhanced data rate (EDR). CSR hasalso announced that the EDR solution has alreadybeen selected by Dell. The Dell Wireless 350Bluetooth Internal Card is offered as an integratedoption on the Dell Family notebooks.

Bluetooth EDR is ideal for PC applications in that itsupports multiple Bluetooth connections. PCs willincreasingly be asked to support multiple Bluetoothlinks as users type on a Bluetooth keyboard and movea Bluetooth mouse while listening to music on a set ofBluetooth stereo headphones and synchronisingcontact details with their phone or using the phone asa modem to connect to an email or internet service.

EDR offers a maximum data transfer rate of 3Megabits per second (Mbps) - compared to the

current 1Mbps for standard rate Bluetooth. Thisincrease in transfer rate also means that, for a givenamount of data, the EDR radio will be active up to 3times less than a standard v2.0 radio, hence reducingpower consumption, which greatly benefits battery-dependent mobile devices such as laptop computers.

CSR's BlueCore4-external hardware and firmwarewas qualified in November for v2.0 + EDR including

all of the optional EDR features.CSR believes it is 6 months ahead of the

competition in being able to supply EDR silicon tocustomers, suggesting that whilst other siliconvendors have recently been reported to have EDRsilicon, the fact is that, as of today, only CSR hasBluetooth silicon fully qualified by the BQB (BluetoothQualification Board - a prerequisite before Bluetoothsilicon can be supplied) to v2.0 + EDR, and CSR isalso the only company to be supplying EDR silicon involume to its customers.

Glenn Collinson, co-founder and Sales Director,CSR, commented, "We expect that customers willmigrate rapidly to Bluetooth v2.0+EDR spec to allowend customers to benefit from the multiple Bluetoothlinks and higher data rates. This migration will mirrorother similar trends such as the move from USB1.0 toUSB2.0".

CSR's BlueCore4 EDR end-productnow shipping in volume

Spectre signs Taiyo Yuden to enhanceBluetooth value

Modular communications specialist Spectre hassigned a distribution agreement with Taiyo Yuden,adding the company’s range of Bluetoothmodules to its portfolio.

Spectre is focused on enabling communications fornon-communications specialists, over ranges from afew feet to several miles. Spectre supports solutionsbased on established standards including GPRS,GSM, 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, ZigBee, ultra-wide band,TCP/IP, as well as selected appropriate proprietarysolutions.

"Taiyo Yuden's philosophy is very close to our own

at Spectre, with a strong product line based onindustry standards and modularity deliveringmaximum value," said Doug Gilmour, marketingdirector, Spectre Communications. "Adding TaiyoYuden to our line card strengthens our position as theUK's most dynamic advocate of flexible, high-capability wireless communications."

Taiyo Yuden's module line-up offers a range ofoptions, giving designers the flexibility to use high orlow integration architecture for their Bluetoothsolution, depending on their requirements in terms ofsystem cost, size and performance. Options include

discrete or integrated antennas, USB or UARTinterface and CDMA interface, plus software andfirmware options including the serial communicationsprofile SPP integrated on-chip. Full developmentsupport includes evaluation boards and softwareevaluation kits.

Taiyo Yuden plans new additions including longer-range Bluetooth Class 1 modules and support for theIntel WCS Phase-II Coexistence specification, whichallows both Bluetooth and IEEE802.11b/g WirelessLAN technology to operate simultaneously on thesame platform.

Cetecom tester validatedCetecom’s BITE Protocol Tester v1.1 & v1.2 has

recently been validated by the Bluetooth SIG forthe following parts of Bluetooth SpecificationVersion 1.1: Baseband, Link Manager, GenericAccess Profile, Service Discovery Profile, SerialPort Profile and RFCOMM.

Cetecom claims that the BITE Protocol Tester is thefirst conformance tester to implement the official V1.2TTCN test vectors specified by the Bluetooth SIGsupporting Adaptive Frequency Hopping (AFH), FastConnection, Extended SCO link, revised QoS andmore. CETECOM has also applied for the validation of

the BITE Protocol Tester v1.1 & v1.2 in the scope ofBluetooth Specification Version 1.2: Parts B(Baseband) and C (Link Manager).

The BITE RF Tester and the BITE Protocol Tester willbe updated to support Bluetooth EDR (Enhanced DataRate) during the first half of 2005.

High data rate Bluetooth silicon now available from CSR

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This was one press release guaranteed to grabthe attention of most technology journalists, andyour Incisor scribes were no exception. After all,it’s not often that a hack sees the words ‘win apint of Carling lager’ and ‘wireless technologypilot campaign’ in the same press release.

So what is this all about? Quite simple, really.OneZeroOne, which is the media technology arm ofmedia giant Poster Publicity, is working with beercompany Carling to launch a six-month wirelesstechnology pilot campaign in the city of Bristol,England. This was launched on the 29th November.

The campaign comprises of three elements:

1. Setting up Bluetooth-enabled touch screenkiosks throughout Bristol which will give peoplefree internet access as well as information onwhere to go and what to do in the city of Bristolfrom pubs, restaurants, hotels and shops tocultural sites, theatres and libraries etc.

2. A dedicated Carling channel on the kiosksoffering people the chance to enter competitionsto win tickets to Carling live music gigs in Bristoland London or to win a pint of Carling at a localpub as well as giving details of up and cominggigs at Carling music venues and the best placesto get a great pint.

3. What is claimed to be the biggest ever wireless‘cloud’ to date in the UK (built by Cityspace),

which will enable people to access the webwherever they happen to be in Bristol withouthaving to find a physical internet connectionpoint. Consumers with Bluetooth enabled on theirmobile phones in the area will also be able to opt-in to receive Carling offers and Carlinglive musicfootage as the campaign progresses.

Chris O’Donnell, head of OneZeroOne, said: “Thisis the future of consumer interaction with brands.We’re really focussed on ‘destination planning’whereby we set up the kiosks in locations wherepeople have completed their journey, such asshopping centres, pubs, city centres or rail stations.Here they are in a different mind-frame from whenthey are in the home or travelling from A to B, andare open to different kinds of messages. This is ahuge pilot campaign and a great example of thefuture of out-of-home advertising. We will replicate

the Bristol experience in major cities across thecountry once we have completed our learningexperience.”

Nicola Young, head of Relationship Marketing atCarling, said: “We are really excited about the futureopportunities a project like this can deliver. Withmore companies investigating the potential of newtechnologies to engage consumers, the Bristol pilotwill enable us to experiment with a range of thesedevices as well as enable us to get more instantfeedback from our consumers.”

Incisor has commented in the past that this typeof ‘push’ marketing – while quite probably a hugefuture application for wireless - is regarded by manyas invasive and intrusive. These two companies doat least seem to have a reasonable chance ofsuccess based upon the fact that their targetaudience normally has no problem consideringbooze-related opportunities.

Wireless beer from OneZeroOne and Carling

Bristolian students wandering aimlessly, hoping to be Blue-jacked by alcohol purveyors

More Bluetooth direct marketing Dublin-based Rococo Software and

Prague’s Midletsoft Corporation have built aBluetooth wireless technology solution thathelps retailers interact with customers.

Using Rococo’s Impronto, a Bluetooth softwaredevelopment tool, Midletsoft has expanded thereach of its Jellingspot Data Server, a location-based point server platform. Jellingspot DataServer allows shoppers within a 100-meterradius of server locations to freely accessinformation about a store, its goods and servicesvia mobile phones and PDAs. Customers canobtain both static and dynamic electronic-basedcontent, including text, pictures, music, video andmore, directly to their mobile devices.

“Our Jellingspot Data Server gives the retailindustry the ability to offer ‘on demand’information that is current, free, and alwaysavailable to help customers make more informedpurchasing decisions on the spot,” said DavidStennett, CEO of Midletsoft. “Rococo’s Improntohas been instrumental in helping us bring oursoftware to the market.”

“When we began building Bluetoothinfrastructure for software developers,Midletsoft’s Jellingspot was the kind ofdevelopment project we had in mind,” said KarlMcCabe, CTO at Rococo Software. “Improntohelps Bluetooth developers create revolutionaryapplications that change the way people interact

with mobile devices and with each other. In thiscase, Rococo’s Impronto software providesMidletsoft’s Jellingspot Data Server with aBluetooth technology solution upon whichMidletsoft has built its compelling platform.”

Analyst firm Frost & Sullivan predicts that by2005 some 37 billion advertisements and alertswill be sent to mobile devices in Europe, and that65% of users will be prepared to receive ads inthis way. These messages are expected to beworth $7.4 billion in revenues.

Bluetooth industry news continued

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Infineon launches EDR BluetoothBluetooth industry news continued

Joining the ranks of Enhanced Data Rate(EDR) Bluetooth silicon providers, InfineonTechnologies has announced the availabilityof its BlueMoon UniCellular. It supports theVersion 2.0 Bluetooth standard, as well asthe new Enhanced Data Rate (EDR)functionality.

“Market experts anticipate that Bluetooth willsoon be a standard interface in mobile phonessuch as IrDA is today. By 2007, we expect aboutevery second mobile phone to be equipped withBluetooth functionality,” said Dominik Bilo, chiefmarketing officer of the Secure Mobile Solutions

business group at Infineon Technologies AG.“Based on our extensive platform expertise,broad product portfolio and in-house systemknow-how, we support our customers inreducing complexity and reducing their time-to-market.”

Both the reduction of the package size to 5mmx 5mm and the decrease of the number ofexternal components from at least nine to justsix results in a Bluetooth chip that covers 40square millimetres of board space, whichInfineon claims is half the size of solutionsavailable on the market today. In addition,

Infineon’s Bluetooth transceiver provides areceiver sensitivity of -90 dBm (decibelmilliwatts) even in Enhanced Data Rate mode. Itsurpasses by a factor of ten the requiredreceiver sensitivity specified by the BluetoothStandard, guaranteeing a high-quality, long-range communication link. Based on Infineon’s130nm CMOS process technology, the chip hasa power consumption that is about 35 percentlower than in the previous generation ofBluetooth solutions.

Sample quantities are available today. Fullproduction is expected to start mid 2005.

Nokia Digital Pen and IBM eServerimprove efficiencies at DHL

Nokia is collaborating with IBM and Fruits,a system integrator from Denmark, todevelop a custom built mobility solution forDHL Solutions. The trio’s aim is to streamlinedeliveries to retail customers, accelerateinvoicing, and move the company towards apaperless back office. In addition, thesolution provides delivery information tocustomers via a Web interface. The solutionis based on a technology provided by aSwedish company Anoto Group, which willbe familiar to long-term Incisor readers as adeveloper of digital pen and paper solutionsthat use Bluetooth technology.

"Our customers have an immediate need toknow when a delivery has been completed,"said Kurt Nielsen, DHL Solutions EuropeNorth/UK. "The Nokia/IBM solution ensures thatas soon as a recipient signs for a delivery, thecustomer can access that information via theWeb site. That is the kind of efficiency that setsDHL Solutions apart from the competition."

DHL drivers are equipped with a Nokia DigitalPen that the delivery recipient uses to sign off ona shipment. The Nokia Digital Pen connectswirelessly via a Nokia mobile business device toan IBM eServer in the DHL head office where thedata will immediately be available to customersvia a Web site. In areas where there is nowireless service, the solution uses automated

data forwarding, whereby the Nokia Digital Penacts like a portable desktop, storing deliveryinformation and customer signatures. As soonas the driver reaches another wireless coveragearea, the data is automatically sent ahead.

"Other companies use portable minicomputersto perform the same tasks - only the units cancost up to €5000 and are easily damaged. TheNokia Digital Pen costs less than €250, requiresno training and is rugged," said Jukka Hieta,head of global pen sales at Nokia. "This is agreat example of how a small change can havea big impact."

The joint Nokia/IBM solution has apparentlytransformed interaction between DHL driversand delivery recipients, accelerating the transferof information to near-real time. During a

delivery, the recipient can check the shipment toensure that the right items in the right amountshave been delivered. The recipient then uses thedigital pen, which acts like a normal ballpointpen, to sign a digital page of the consignmentnote to accept the delivery. The pen'selectronics ensure that every turn andmovement is registered electronically. The driverchecks a box next to the signature,automatically sending the information wirelesslyto the head office via a Bluetooth-enabled Nokiamobile phone.

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Mobile phones and driving legislationone year on - is it working?

The 1st December 2004 marked the one-year anniversary of the introduction of in-carmobile legislation in the UK, and although alldrivers are now fully aware of the legislation,it has emerged that many are still regularlyflouting the law. A survey conducted by TNSGlobal on behalf of hands free solutionsprovider Jabra (the mobile brand of GNNetcom), found that as many as 14% ofdrivers in Great Britain, which accounts forfive million people, readily admit to stillusing their hand-held mobile phones whiledriving.

Key Findings:• 100% of drivers questioned were aware of

the legislation• 14% of drivers admitted to driving while

using a handheld mobile phone• Men are more likely to ignore the legislation

(17% admitted to doing so, compared to 10%of women drivers)

• Only 0.25% of drivers surveyed had beenfined or warned by the police for ignoring thelegislation since its introduction

• 10% of drivers surveyed would take the lawmore seriously and either buy a hands-freedevice or stop using their phones whiledriving if the government was to introduceharsher penalties

• 93% of respondents believe that the mobilephone legislation is important in terms ofimproving road safety

• 59% said they would report other drivers forflouting the law if there was a system in placeto do so

Introduced in December 2003, the currentlegislation states that drivers caught using theirphone behind the wheel face a minimum fine of£30 or conviction of up to £1000 if taken tocourt.

The results of Jabra's survey suggest that thelegislation penalties are not severe enough tomake all drivers stop using their mobile phoneswhile driving. It is also clear that the risk ofgetting caught is perceived as being very low,with only 0.25% of questioned drivers havingbeen fined or warned by the police for this

offence in the last year.This doesn’t meant that our police force isn’t

trying to do its job. On the day that Incisor wasreviewing Jabra’s report, the BBC news servicereported that a British woman had been fined bya UK magistrate for holding an apple whileturning a corner in her car. The policemanresponsible for apprehending this hardenedcriminal admitted that he stopped the womanbecause he ‘thought she was using a mobilephone’. This didn’t stop her being prosecuted,her lawyer branding this as ‘ridiculous’. As far asIncisor knows, it isn’t illegal in the UK to hold anapple while driving. Hats off to the vigilance ofour police force!

Back to the report. When told about thegovernment's plans to increase the penalties toan on the spot fine of £100 and possible pointsif taken to court, 10% of all drivers (whichaccounts for the majority of drivers stilladmitting to ignoring the ban currently) said thiswould encourage them to alter their behaviour

and either buy a hands-free device or stop usingthe phone in the car altogether.

The majority of the population fully supportsthe legislation. 93% of people surveyed feel thelegislation is important in terms of improvingroad safety: 30% of those believe it is‘absolutely critical’. The majority of driverssurveyed (59%) felt so strongly about thelegislation that they would go as far as reportingother drivers for flouting the law if there was asystem in place to do so.

The research found that men favouredBluetooth headsets, with 14% of male driverssurveyed having bought them already. 7% ofwomen have also chosen a Bluetooth solution.

Ben Bushell, Country Manager, Jabra UK andIreland commented: ‘While our research showsthat the majority of people are supportive of themobile driving legislation, there is still a largeproportion that admits to, and probably manymore who don't admit to, completely ignoringthe ban.’ Jabra is doing its bit to help, and hasrecently reduced the price of its best sellingBluetooth headsets to make them moreaccessible for all consumers.

For what it is worth, Incisor applauds Jabra’smove, and that of our legislators. When it is assimple and inexpensive as it is to equip yourselfwith a Bluetooth hands-free solution, there’s noexcuse for endangering your own life and moreimportantly the lives of other road users.

Bluetooth industry news continued

This is the way you are supposed to do it - by law

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BlueCore host software gainspowerful new profiles

Carsten Andersen, CSR

CSR’s BlueCore Host Software (BCHS) isoptimised for use with BlueCore silicon,enabling OEMs to implement some of themost cost-effective, lowest powerconsumption Bluetooth communicationsystems on the market. The software has thesignificant advantage that it contains mostof the Bluetooth intelligence – includingprofiles, security, connection manager andapplication layers – and provides the sourcecode for all upper layers of the Bluetoothprotocol stack, down to the Host ControllerInterface (HCI) level. A lower cost version,where the core stack (RFCOMM, SDP andL2CAP) is running on the BlueCore chip andrequires less of the host’s resources but withsome performance trade-off, is alsoavailable. Both versions feature the samesimple Application Programming Interface(API) which enables users to constructoptimised Bluetooth solutions withoutdemanding in-depth knowledge of thetechnology.

CSR has a policy of progressively expandingthe functionality of BCHS, enabling designers toincorporate Bluetooth technology across an evermore diverse range of products andapplications. Six new profiles have been addedto the library in the last six months – bringingthe current total to 22 – and the softwarecontinuously undergoes rigorous testing toensure that it is fully compatible with allBlueCore chip models. This includes the newBlueCore4 chip that offers enhanced data rate(EDR) capabilities to facilitate a maximum datatransfer rate of 3Mbps – three times faster thanBluetooth v1.2’s standard rate – and is likely tolead to a raft of new applications involving highspeed transfer of relatively large files. In linewith this, CSR has recently added the BasicImaging Profile (BIP) and Basic Printing Profile(BPP) to the BCHS profile library. The BIP usesthe Generic Object Exchange Profile (GOEP) to

allow a Bluetooth-equipped device such as adigital camera or mobile phone to send one ormore high-resolution image files to anotherBluetooth device, such as a computer. The BPPenables a Bluetooth device such as a mobilephone or PDA to send emails, text messages orformatted documents to a printer.

In the last six months CSR has also addedfeatures like a Linux kernel space port asstandard, as well as support for USB andBluetooth v1.2 functions, such as the adaptivefrequency hopping (AFH) that has beenintroduced to prevent interference with wirelessLANs operating in the same part of the radiospectrum.

A new SIM Access Profile (SAP) had beenadded to further accelerate the take-up ofBluetooth in the automotive sector. People arenow beginning to use Bluetooth car phones tocomply with legislation that precludes use ofhandheld phones in vehicles, and find itadvantageous to be able to exchange SIM cardsbetween their in-car and mobile phones. TheSAP facilitates remote access and control of aSIM card, and CSR’s implementation includesboth the client and server parts of the usagemodel, making it suitable for manufacturersaddressing either the fixed or mobile end of theBluetooth link. Furthermore, BCHS v10.0provides an enhanced audio gateway, whichnow offers headset side control – making it idealfor in-vehicle communication applications.

On the home entertainment front, CSR hasadded a host-side Human Interface Device (HID)Profile and has implemented the advancedaudio streaming model (A2DP) for its AudioVideo (AV) profile. The host-side HID is primarilyintended for computers and gaming consoles –enabling them to be controlled via a Bluetooth-enabled peripheral such as a joystick, mouse orkeyboard – but it also has applications in otherareas, such as retrieving information fromhandheld bar code scanners or remote sensors.Although the enhanced AV profile does notcurrently support video distribution (scheduledfor Q1 2005), it does handle both ‘source’ and‘sink’ roles, enabling an audio stream to beestablished or suspended by devices such asmobile phones, computers, audio adaptors,headphones and speakers. The applicationcontaining the enhanced AV profile also containsa AV Remote Control Profile (AVRCP), whichallows a control link to be established betweenthe sink and source devices.

When teamed with CSR’s latest BlueCore4single-chip silicon, BCHS provides users with afully qualified Bluetooth radio system thatprovides leading-edge performance in terms ofpower management efficiency and high speeddata throughput capabilities.

Carsten Andersen is Technology Manager with CSR. He can be reached viacarsten.andersen@csr.com

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BlueCore host software architecture

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There are many wireless standards. Short-range technologies, such as Bluetooth, UWB,ZigBee etc, through WLAN and up to the longerrange such as GSM. With many in between.These wireless standards and the industries thatservice them are regulated and controlled bystandards bodies and national and internationalagencies across the globe. The end result ofthis? One heck of a lot of testing going on.

Over the years that the wireless industry hasexisted, an industry has grown up around wirelessdevice manufacturers’ need to make sure theirproducts are working properly and comply with allregulations. Many seem to regard the associatedcosts as nothing better than a necessary evil. Otherssee it as a way of making sure they deliver the bestproducts to their customers, who enjoy a good out ofbox experience as a result, and think well of theproduct manufacturer and its preciously protectedbrand.

Not all companies in the test industry set out to bepart of it. Once such company is Frontline TestEquipment, which is headquartered inCharlottesville, Virginia, USA. Frontline has sold over30,000 data communication analysers since 1988and is the world's number one provider of PC-basedpacket sniffers, network sniffing tools, and protocolanalysers for special-purpose data communicationnetworks. But if it didn’t set out to do this, how did ithappen? Incisor spoke to Eric Kaplan, founder andpresident of Frontline.

‘I had founded a software consulting companyhere in Charlottesville in 1985,’ explained Kaplan,‘We were carrying out general software engineeringand development of embedded systems. Wemorphed into a test equipment company in the late80’s, when we needed a serial analyser. One of ourguys said, “Lets build it ourselves” and so we did. Itworked well, and this project was partly behind ourdecision to transition from a software consultingcompany into a product manufacturing company.’

The path to success was not always straight,though. “We designed a serial analyser in a pod, and

took the design to a bigger company in the testequipment industry,’ said Kaplan. ‘They liked it, andacquired the company. However, within six monthsthat company was itself bought by another companywhich didn’t subscribe to my idea of having adivision within the company focused on creating andselling reasonably priced test equipment. Despitethe fact that I had relocated the business and myfamily to Chicago, there wasn’t much choice but toextricate the core of the business and move it backto Charlottesville.’

The business that was recreated in Charlottesvillehad its work cut out to be viable again, needing tore-focus amid the disruption – fiscal, people andbusiness-related. One factor that helped was themarket’s ongoing appreciation of the ‘analyser in apod’ design. Imitation being the most sincere form offlattery, Kaplan must have felt pretty well liked at thetime as many of Frontline’s competitors had copiedthe design.

This backbone of Frontline’s product line continuedto provide good revenues, and helped the companyto return to profitability. Everyone knows, though,that you cannot rest on your laurels. ‘About 7-8years ago we kicked off a blue-skies design session,speculating on where we wanted the products andcompany to go. Out of this came a number ofdecisions. We moved across from DOS to theWindows environment, and continued to addfeatures to our analysers’ said Kaplan.

Frontline was building a foundation of a verystrong and extensible architecture for its protocolanalyser platform. Yet, once again, fate dealtFrontline a bad hand. This was the point in the early,post-Millennium years when the ITC industry startedto slide into recession. ‘The bubble was bursting,and we saw many test equipment manufacturers’sales slip by 50% or more’ said Kaplan. Despite this,Frontline not only survived but grew slightly throughthis tough period.

The key to Frontline’s growth was that it hadentered the wireless world. A call from Broadcom’sBluetooth team, which said that it had been using

Frontline serial analysers, and now wanted a specialBluetooth version, and another call along the samelines from Bluetooth trail-blazer Silicon Wave wasenough to show Kaplan that Frontline needed to bein wireless test equipment.

‘We had had a very positive industry reaction toour serial HCI Bluetooth analyser, and it wasfortunate that when our customers wanted a moreaffordable air sniffer our product architecture wasapplicable to it,’ explained Kaplan, ‘We initiated thework we needed to do to get us started.’

That may have been enough to cement Frontline’sentry into the wireless market, but another move byKaplan accelerated the process. ‘At the BluetoothUnPlugFest 6 I approached Bluetooth market leaderCSR’s technical officer James Collier, and explainedour air sniffer proposal. James liked the idea andagreed that CSR and Frontline would cooperate onthe project,’ said Kaplan. ‘He wanted affordable testtools for his own team. Air sniffers at this time werevery expensive, and James could see that not onlywas this a barrier to CSR, but it was holding back thewhole industry. Therefore, CSR standardised onFrontline for sniffers. This had great testimonialvalue for us, and was the starting point of a veryvaluable and productive partnership.’

This, then, was a hiatus point for the testequipment industry. Frontline’s aggressively pricedanalysers prompted its competitors to add featuresto their products, or lower prices in order to compete.Or both, as Kaplan explains, ‘At this time, Mobiwave– one of the most competitive vendors - was sellingits product for just below $10,000. We were belowthat and had many more features. CATC – one of thebiggest – was forced to drop price and add value.Tektronix, Yokogawa, and Arca soon gave up. Thefunny thing is that at one point we were persuaded toincrease our price a little in response to feedbacktelling us that customers considered that as ourproducts were so cheap, they must be no good!’

Kaplan’s company did not rely on aggressivepricing alone. Three functions of the Frontline testerstood out. First, a debugging paradigm invented by

continued

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Frontline enabled HCI and air testing to be carriedout simultaneously, enabling microprocessor toBluetooth and Bluetooth to Bluetooth communicationto be monitored. Second, Frontline’s real-timemonitoring and decoding of message packets.

The third - and perhaps most significant – wasthat CSR allowed Frontline to re-flash CSR’sBlueCore Bluetooth chip enabling the creation of aFrontline air-sniffing probe. This meant dramaticincreases in convenience and portability fordevelopment engineers needing to test in manydifferent places – their own labs, customer sites orUnPlugFests for example. Now it was possible for anengineer to carry out testing without needing to lugaround normal test equipment, using instead asimple dongle or BlueCore development kit, by farthe mosr widely adapted Bluetooth silicon in theindustry.

Bringing the Bluetooth product story up to date, thecurrent state of the Frontline Bluetooth art is itsFTS4BT, a protocol analyzer that can sniff Bluetoothdata six ways: (1) through the air; (2 & 3) by tappingthe serial or USB HCI interface between a BluetoothHost CPU and a Bluetooth Host Controller; (4 & 5) byspying on the serial or USB HCI connection betweena PC and a Bluetooth device; and (6) "Virtually", viathe Live Import feature, which permits anyapplication to feed data into the analyzer.

At this stage, with Frontline in a position wherebyits test systems are applicable across serial,Ethernet, Bluetooth, USB, and even some specializedcommunication buses for industrial automation, it isZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4 that is Frontline’s newesttechnology focus area. A different market, accordingto Kaplan. ‘ZigBee development kits are veryinexpensive,’ he explained ‘We have worked withsemiconductor companies such as Freescale to seethat the Frontline sniffer, called FTS4ZB, is includedin their ZigBee development kits. Freescale has been

shipping FTS4ZB in their kit since December. Thishas been seen to be a good move for Freescale andthe ZigBee community, as well as for Frontline.’

Nothing ever stands still, though, and some testequipment companies and test houses becamenervous towards the end of 2004 as a result of theBluetooth Special Interest Group (BSIG) hinting that itwas to change the way conformity andinteroperability testing would take place, which – itwas suspected – would reduce the amount of testingto be done and therefore hit test companies’revenues. It hasn’t panned out this way for Frontline,Kaplan pointed out. ‘While wireless standardscontinue to develop, more testing will always result.Both Bluetooth and ZigBee have lots of new profiles,particularly ZigBee which is expected to have manycustom profiles above the ZigBee stack. The Frontlinetool makes it simple to support these customprofiles. In the ZigBee space new silicon companiesare appearing all the time. By the end of this year Ibelieve there will be 10-12 ZigBee development kitsand I hope that FTS4ZB is in most of them.’

So, a good volume of ongoing work then, anddespite the industry’s BSIG-related worries, Frontlinehas also benefited from one particular Bluetoothtesting development. As part of its end of yearroadmap announcements, the BSIG announced thatit was developing its own in-house development andtest team, and would provide BSIG associatemembers and above tools that will simplifyconformance and interoperability testing and reducethe need to engage external test houses. Frontlineproposed to the BSIG that it would be inevitable thatthese tools would need support. The BSIG agreedand Frontline was engaged to fulfil this role.

What, then, of the future for Frontline? AfterZigBee, Kaplan intends that Frontline will addressthe WLAN/Wi-Fi market. ‘The Wi-Fi analysers on themarket today are generally aimed at the IT industry.

However, Wi-Fi is expanding - into mobile phones forexample. We already have a lot of phone companiesand network operators as customers, and will havea Wi-Fi product by the end of 2005. We are proudthat we have created a core platform that iscommon across our range of products, which meansthat a customer familiar with our Bluetooth analyserwill be comfortable across the range of Frontlineanalysers.’

Frontline is a company that is soundly andsuccessfully established as a manufacturer of highlyrespected test equipment, but hasn’t stoppedlooking at other opportunities. Frontline looks tobuild upon its expertise in the embedded space andalso to continue to provide test tools to the industrialcommunications industry for applications such asdebugging network systems for control of oil andgas pipelines. ‘We need to retain our knowledge ofthe wired analysis business’ said Kaplan, whoseems to have a permanently open weather eye fornew business opportunities.

For a company that didn’t set out to be a testequipment company, Frontline Test Equipment hasdone very well. Incisor looks forward to working withthis company over the coming months.

TM

Sponsored contribution

Next month's issue of Incisor will include a review of the market for ZigBee technology

If your company operates in the 802.15.4 sector, and wishes to be represented,

contact Vince Holton now - Email vholton@click.co.uk

9

Put yourself in this situation. You are theChief Technology Officer of a national watersupply company. You have thousands ofhouseholds taking their water from you and paying for usage via a water meterinside their houses. Sending operativesaround to every household to take meterreadings is a practice that is inefficient, andtherefore costly, and you just know thatthere is a better and less old-fashioned wayof doing it.

Wireless technology is very obviously the wayto go. But which wireless technology? You areaware that Bluetooth has been adopted by manycompanies building metering equipment, butBluetooth’s limited range means that you stillneed to send an operator to every household,and are effectively back at square one.

No, you need some sort of automated system,one that periodically reports meter readings, andwhich has sufficient range to be able to operateas part of a large network, communicating withone access point, which in turn is connectedsomehow to your company servers via theInternet or a GSM link.

Oh, and you need your device to be able tooperate for very long periods of time – up to 10years - on commonly available batteries.Another reason not to choose current Bluetoothtechnology.

So, what wireless technology options do youhave that provide long-range capabilities andultra low power consumption? You have heard ofthe IEEE’s 802.15.4, ZigBee, and evensomething called Bluetooth Lite. All are pitchedat the ultra low power (ULP), long range market.Yet none seems to be available today, or has anestablished standard. Where does that leaveyou? Back at square one?

Not according to Coronis Systems, a fablesssemiconductor company based in Montpellier,France. For two years Coronis has been sellingproducts that exactly fit the bill based around itsWavenis technology. More than 250,000 deviceshave been installed by Coronis partners such asEDF, France Telecom, Schneider Electric, VivendiEnvironnement, various European watercompanies and also with Asian and NorthAmerican companies. Firm customer orders for

more than 500,000 products for the next 18months are already in place.

Marketing director Christophe Dugasexplained the background to his company’ssuccess story. “The four founders of thecompany came from the world of automated

meter reading(AMR), with one ofthem having beenChief TechnologyOfficer of Itron, a UScompany that leadsthis market. Thisbackground, andtheir involvement inthe AMR industry’sadoption of wirelessgave them all of theexperience they

needed of the technology and pricingchallenges.”

The obvious thing to do would have been tocreate a metering equipment company. Coronis’founders instead chose to focus on the wirelesselement, thereby developing an enablingsolution that could be sold to many companies,rather than servicing only their own company’sproduct portfolio, or even the AMR market.

“We did not want to limit ourselves to just oneapplication or industry,” said Dugas. “Wavenis istargeting the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN)market, and any application where smallamounts of data need to be communicated overextended distances, or when devices are hard toreach, and are consuming very small amountsof power.” In addition to AMR then, Coronis isalso addressing home automation, lighting,security, alarms and industrial applications withWavenis – any application that sends smallamounts of data on a regular basis, no matterhow infrequent.

Coronis did not set out to reinvent the wheel,with a completely new and proprietary standard.Seeing the common sense of aligning with anexisting standard, Coronis developed Wavenisas a technology whose alignment to Bluetooth isstraightforward. Coronis provides the fullwireless function - the hardware and theprotocol stack which incorporates all the modes

required for operationof a wireless network. In addition,Wavenis has been designed to featureBluetooth extension capabilities to open thestandardization way for such an ULP wirelesssolution.

The headline numbers are that Wavenisdevices can communicate at data rates of20kbps over distances of 200 metres withinbuildings, up to 1km in clear air, and operate atan average 10 µA, meaning up to 10 yearsbattery life using AA batteries.

There is an important point that needs to beconsidered. When you are keeping a sensornetwork operating for several years,synchronization cannot be achieved over thetotal life period. In the case of such a synchnetwork, if synch is lost, devices try to retrievethe synch and therefore enter high currentconsuming mode which is not compatible withlong life. So, devices should synch only whenthey need to do so, and the communicationbetween devices backed down immediatelyafter. Synchronisation is done at predeterminedtimes, which are decided by the application(access time of 1s for metering, down to 0 forlighting). In this way, devices toggle sequentiallybetween receive mode and standby mode formost of their lives.

As the table on page 10 shows, Wavenisoperates at 868 MHz in Europe and 915 MHz forthe American market, with the capability also tooperate at 2.4 GHz in the Industrial, Scientific,and Medical (ISM) band. “We are frequencyband agnostic,” said Dugas, continuing “Thoughthanks to better regulation in the two mainfrequency bands, taking advantage of non-

Coronis Systems drives ultra lowpower RF market changes

Christophe Dugas, MarketingDirector, Coronis Systems

continued

10

directive antenna, 2.4GHz operation is not usedat the present time, but we can adapt to 2.4 GHzif we need to do so.”

Another important factor for companieslooking to implement large scale, sensor-basedsystems is the number of devices that can be supported. Like ZigBee, Wavenis is a meshnetworking technology. However, while theZigBee Alliance states that a maximum number of 255 nodes can be supported, Coronisstates that the number of nodes supported by Wavenis is unlimited. “We use concentratorsas the link between the nodes and the accesspoint, and each can handle up to 2,000 devices. However, we believe that in practicethere will rarely be more than a few hundrednodes in a mesh network.” As part of itsdevelopment, Coronis developed an uniquemesh networking algorithm, which has alreadygained the admiration of France Telecom’s R&D centre.

If a lot of this sounds like Wavenis is aimingsquarely at the ZigBee market, Dugas wouldagree, but with significant differences. “Coronisknows ZigBee technology, but we think thatthere are some limitations to the ZigBee spec.The limits of its range - coupled with powerconsumption - work against it. In order toachieve extended range they plan to haverepeaters, which will of course bump up the costof installing ZigBee networks. There are someother weaknesses. Receiver sensitivity is 95dBm, close to Bluetooth, and we have somedoubts about the physical layer (PHY). One of ourkey customers – one of the world’s largestproviders of electric devices - looked at bothZigBee and Wavenis for lighting systems, andchose to implement Wavenis. That said, ZigBeecan be good for meter reading applications inthe USA, as their meters are fixed to the outsideof the house, so that they are easy-to-reachdevices.” commented Dugas.

Earlier in this article we mentioned Coronis’decision to centre Wavenis technology around Bluetooth. Not a bad idea, based uponthe undoubted success and growing acceptanceof this flavour of short range RF. But Coronis’target characteristics – long range and ultralower power – immediately separates Wavenisfrom Bluetooth. Or so you would think. It hasbeen widely reported that the Bluetooth SIG(BSIG) would like to expand the appeal ofBluetooth so that it could address the marketthat ZigBee is going for. So called ‘BluetoothLite’ is the answer, and either exists in variouslabs and is being suppressed, or exists only inthe land of the fairies, depending on who youbelieve.

Dugas is in no doubts over the truth of thesituation. “If you looked at the BSIG roadmapunveiled at the recent WiCon event, you can seethat there is no intention to take Bluetooth to anyhigher data rates than the 3Mbps of EDR Bluetooth. The competition landscape forhigh data rate transfer is overcrowded by many standards and will be probably beserviced by Ultra Wideband, Wi-Fi or maybesomething else even more speedy. No, the BSIGis looking at control/command, ULP applicationsin order to gain market share. In turn, wepropose to smartly merge our RF & baseband onthe Bluetooth chip that features similararchitectures.” Coronis became a member ofthe BSIG last year, and according to Dugas has been participating in the BSIG road-mapping committee on developments to thespec in this area.

There is a clear advantage, says Dugas, toextending Bluetooth rather than adoptingZigBee. “If you do this, any ‘dual-mode’Bluetooth-enabled product can become anaccess point to control Ultra Low Power endpoints, so that there is no need to implement acostly gateway with ZigBee. As a result, mobile

phones or PDAs can be used as a friendlyremote control for alarms and home systemcontrol applications.

Some work was required to enable theBluetooth link. “In order to implement theBluetooth extension to Wavenis we have‘relaxed’ some of the more stringentrequirements relating to data rates andsynchronisation,” explained Dugas. “At thesame time, the BSIG is looking to attack thecontrol/command market by optimising certainof Bluetooth’s features. This doesn’t mean thatthe BSIG will necessarily adopt Coronis’technology solutions, but we certainly believethat we have been able to influencedevelopments.” Coronis is content to aim atcommercial rather than ego-level success, andsays that if its technology were adopted as astandard, it would be content to let the Wavenisidentity disappear.

Coronis’ success in selling 250,000 units didcause a little disquiet initially in its dealings withthe BSIG, which expressed concern that Coronishas been marketing Wavenis as Bluetooth Lite.Coronis was able to convince the BSIG that thiswasn’t so, and diplomatic relations wereresumed.

So, can Bluetooth, alongside Wavenis, trulyattack the ultra low power, long range market?Coronis is absolutely convinced it can. “We haveoperated an open book policy with the BluetoothSIG in order to help them do so” commentedDugas. Certainly the track record of thecompany would suggest that there is more tocome. With a staff of 40 people it has seen itsrevenues grow to 3 million in the year to July’04, and is on track to see this rise to 6 millionthis year, and to 15 million the next.

Nor is Coronis prepared to leave too much tochance. It may be a fabless company, but notonly did it develop its own core/stack, it alsoinsisted on building the manufacturing testbenches used at the subcontractors factories inEurope and China so that its products were builtusing Coronis tools.

And remember, while ZigBee is still working on its stack and spec, Coronis has been selling products for two years. This revenue flow is helping Coronis grow its businessinternationally, and the company will expand itsposition in North American, creating a USsubsidiary during 2005.

A company to watch, we believe.

Features WavenisAverage operating current 10 µA (1s latency)Carrier frequency 868MHz, 915MHz, 2400MHzLine of sight 1km (124dB link budget @ 0dBi antenna)Indoor 200 mTypical lifespan of equipment 10 years (AA size battery)Data rate 20kbps Output power up to +14dBmFrame sensitivity -110 dBmProtocol WavenisModulation GFSKMAC FHSS (50kHz channel BW)

www.coronis-systems.com

12

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

Seeking the path to UWBenlightenment

Incisor examines the UWB market, and the challenges facedby this emerging, very high data rate wireless technology

As this article was being written, it wasGolden Globes week. The glitterati gatheredand the plaudits flew. In this vein, can I askyou to cast your minds back, please, to theperiod of two or three years from 1998?

Then, too, there was glamour, glitz, parties,celebrities, awards and sell out events allover the world. This was show-biz. Lest youthink that you have inadvertently picked up acopy of the National Enquirer or Hellomagazine, let me reassure that this isIncisor, and we cover the wireless industry.We were simply casting our minds back tothe early days of Bluetooth.

Readers who have been with us from 1998 willknow that Bluetooth hit the wireless industrywith a force rarely seen before. After a periodwhere the technology bubbled under for 6-12months, suddenly everyone wanted to knowabout this thing called Bluetooth. And Bluetoothwent on to be a true success. Some companiesmay have gone by the wayside, but others arenow seeing Bluetooth provide solid and growingrevenues. What’s more, the way the standardwas brought to market is widely regarded ashaving been a role model for the way thesethings should be done.

But why reminisce? Because it seems thatlightning may indeed strike twice. While otherwireless standards have appeared sinceBluetooth – such as ZigBee, NFC, RFID andvarious flavours of WLAN, and while all of themstake a valid claim to market presence - none ofthem has taken the market by the scruff of theneck the way Bluetooth did. Until now, that is.And the new player seems to have beenborrowing some methodology from Bluetooth,presumably aiming to achieve the same levelsof success. What’s more, for observers fired upby the higher data rates offered by EnhancedData Rate Bluetooth – 3Mbps – this one seemsto offer performance beyond our wildestdreams. Half a Gigabit per second, anyone?

And that’s just for starters.The new player is Ultrawideband (UWB), which

seems to be in the process of exploding onto themarket with a similar - or perhaps even greater- impetus to Bluetooth. Barely more than a yearago Incisor examined UWB as part of a wirelessindustry review, and at this point it was variouslydescribed by those that know in terms such as‘an interesting research project’ and ‘manyyears away’.

But, is UWB the next Bluetooth? And while thetechnology may be radically different, are welooking at a similar impact?

In the year that has past UWB has acceleratedoff the starting blocks and, if we are to believethe publicity, is now knocking on our door as ahere and now technology. If you need to transfervery large amounts of data over short distances,very quickly, and using very little power, thesolution is UWB, and that solution is availablefrom a semiconductor company somewherenear you. This is despite the fact that atechnological chasm exists within UWB that ispreventing a standard being established, and –equally significantly – the technology has onlyso far received regulatory approval in the US.But more of that elsewhere.

One of the major milestones in the annualelectronics calendar is the Consumer

continued

The MBOA UltrawidebandTechZone at CES

Sixteen of the most influential semiconductor,personal computing and consumer electronicscompanies and four industry organizationsappeared together in the MBOA UWB TechZonein the Innovations Plus area of CES, January 6-9,2005 in Las Vegas. The purpose of this jointappearance was to educate and excite the CESaudience about the possibilities of UWB and toshow the broad industry support for MBOA UWBtechnology. By cooperating, the 170-plusmembers of the MBOA-SIG aim to ensure thatfuture UWB wireless enabled products, whichinclude Wireless USB, Wireless 1394 andWireless IP, will seamlessly interoperate andwork together in the future while achieving highperforming and low cost solutions.

The MBOA Ultrawideband TechZone includedeight live demonstrations of the wirelesstechnology including bulk data transfers, quality-of-service based streaming video from varioussources using wireless USB and wireless IPapproaches.

Exhibiting companies in the TechZone included:Alereon, Commstack, Focus EnhancementSemiconductors, General Atomics AdvancedWireless Group, HP, Intel Corporation, MitsubishiElectric, Orangeware, Philips Electronics,Staccato Communications, Samsung Electronics,Texas Instruments, Taiyo Yuden R&D of America(TRDA), TDK, WiQuest and Wisair.

The exhibiting specification-building bodies,who are closely working together to ensureinteroperability for MB-OFDM ultrawidebandproducts, included: the MultiBand OFDM Alliance(MBOA-SIG), WiMedia Alliance, 1394 TradeAssociation and the Wireless USB PromoterGroup.

13

Electronics show, which takes place in LasVegas during the opening days of January eachyear. Here at Incisor, our email in-boxes startedto be inundated by UWB-related press releases,announcements and invitations from earlyDecember.

Both main camps of UWB supportingcompanies - the MBOA with Multiband OFDMUWB, and the UWB Forum with Direct SequenceUWB (DS-UWB) – were out in force at CES, asyou can see from the panels on this and theprevious page. Beyond the MBOA and UWBForums, there are other flavours of UWB – suchas that promoted by Pulse-Link. While Pulse-Link (which is known as something of amaverick) wasn’t at CES, it did put out a pressrelease during December claiming that it hadachieved the highest data rates ever transmittedand received for UWB wireless communications,demonstrating 667 Mbps of throughput afterforward error correction. It must be imaginedthat this announcement was timed to stealthunder from the MBOA and UWB Forumannouncements. Pulse-Link’s story is carried ina separate piece in this issue.

Both the MBOA and UWB Forum are going forthe high data rate cable market as one of thefirst outlets for UWB, with the MBOA’s firstsignificant public push being based aroundWireless USB, and the UWB Forum pitching atthe 1394 / FireWire sector (though so too is theMBOA). This is likely to be the first way most ofus experience UWB, as an USB replacement.Staccato Communications is one of the leadingMBOA companies, and VP of Businessdevelopment Mark Bowles commented: ‘Theentire ecosystem for Wireless USB is now inplace from PHY and MAC specs, to WUSB specs,to test and interoperability procedures, to SWand driver vendors, to a competitive array ofvendors.’ Undoubtedly, the USB market offersvolume potential running into billions of units, sothis initial concentration is to be expected.

So, how close are we to having real UWB product?

The MBOA announced in November that it hadcompleted its physical layer (PHY) 1.0specifications and was making these availableto MBOA-SIG Promoter, Contributor and Adoptermembers. Undoubtedly, people developingproduct can do so much more quickly if there isa set of ground rules to work with. Companiessuch as Staccato are completing integrationwith the Media Access Controller (MAC) andwireless USB functionality, and the MAC 1.0spec is due to be delivered in an IP review in 30-60 days. Staccato plans to ship a complete,single-chip wireless USB solution in 2005.

For the DS-UWB camp, only Freescale's Ultra-Wideband solutions are commercially availableand FCC approved, according to Franz Fink,senior vice president and general manager ofFreescale's wireless business. At CES, Freescalewas showing UWB applications across mobileproducts – a cellphone with UWB, home theatre products and enterprise/office solutions,

and predicted thatconsumer productswould be availablelater this year.Incisor also spoke to Martin Rofheart,director of UWBoperations at Free-scale, who acknow-ledged that althoughfor UWB to come tomarket there were“still a lot of cats to

continued

UWB Forum at CES

UWB Forum members demonstrated a number ofwireless consumer products and prototypes. The"industry first" demonstrations included a DS-UWB-enabled media blaster, wireless homenetwork, set-top box, laptop, HDTV and cell phone,all leveraging DS-UWB commercial chipsets.

The proof-of-concept cell phone demonstrated byUWB Forum members Motorola and FreescaleSemiconductor at CES connected wirelessly to alaptop and downloaded MP3 files from the internetor photos taken with the phone. This wasapparently the first demonstration of a UWB-enabled prototype cell phone, making the potentialfor merging cellular wireless with UWB a reality.

Refugee from the Bluetooth SIG Mike McCamon,now executive director of the UWB Forumcommented "The past year was significant for DS-UWB, having gained certification from the FederalCommunications Commission and the commercialavailability of DS-UWB silicon. As UWB continues togain market momentum, our members remaincommitted to the standards process with a desireto see the current proposal from the IEEE®adopted soon."

UWB Forum Member Demonstrations included:

• Coretronic - UWB-enabled wireless media blaster

• Global Sun - UWB modules designed to allow customers to implement a UWB solution using the popular mini-PCI interface

• Haier - UWB-enabled HDTVs

• Freescale Semiconductor - cellular phone with capabilities to wirelessly transfer MP3 files or digital photos taken with the phone to a laptop

• Samsung and Intellon - hybrid wireless home network

• USI - turnkey 1394 module solutions for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) eager to incorporate UWB immediately into their products

UWB was hot at CES in Las Vegas

Massive volume potential of W-USB market attractsUWB vendors

DS-UWB evangelist MartinRofheart, FreescaleSemiconductor

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

14

herd”, he was confident that DS-UWB-enabledfinished products were only months away.

Other members of the UWB market are deeplysceptical of Freescale’s claims. Staccato’sBowles commented: ‘If you research almost anyclaim made about UWB from XSI and/orFreescale over the past few years they haveturned out to be false. This includes claimsabout "commercially available" silicon literallydating back to 2000, claims of performanceadvantages, range advantages, powerconsumption, time-to-market advantages,claims about competitors, claims aboutsupporting wireless USB, and unfortunately,claims about "impeccable ethics" which theyclaim as one of their corporate pillars.’

A milestone is passed,support increases

We can see that the December / Januaryperiod was a time when many UWB messageswere being promoted. And some fairly influentialparties were endorsing those messages.

Intel is a strong MBOA supporter and chiefexecutive Craig Barrett said in his CES keynotethat Ultrawideband (and other wirelessconnections such as WiMAX) will be vital to theprocessors of the future. UWB will eventually beintegrated into standard silicon processors, hesaid, allowing consumers to quickly transferhundreds of megabytes at a time. Barrettshowed off one of Intel's developing projects, aUWB-enabled device from Wisair. Elsewhere,Microsoft announced UWB drivers, and Nokiaannounced a preference for MBOA UWBbecause of its out-of-band emissions, saying ithad looked closely at the various forms of UWBand determined that MB OFDM provided thebest characteristics for coexistence with mobilephones. This was down to better performance,lower OOB emissions, and ability to adaptdigitally to different regulatory environments.

Global giants like these companies don’t oftenmake statements - and announce softwaresupport in Microsoft’s case - unless they areprepared to back them up. Maybe lessons havebeen learned. Can you remember how long ittook Microsoft to get its Bluetooth act together?The Bluetooth SIG and its members learned wellthe value of winning this level of support. Manyof those people driving Bluetooth developmentcome from companies that blazed the Bluetoothtrail, and so are bringing that experience withthem. The UWB Forum now has Mike McCamonas its executive director, when he formally held

that position at the Bluetooth SIG. A good movefor the DS-UWB people, but there’s always thechance that Mike has backed the wrong horse inwhat is in reality a two horse race.

CES undoubtedly was a watershed, then, in theUWB marketing campaign. Mike Kelly, VP ofmarketing for Focus Semiconductor, which hasa video technology background, confirmed CES’importance to UWB players. “I am sure I am notalone in having been worried that the politicalovertones of developments in UWB could becausing potential customers to lose interest. Ithas been a bit of a soap opera. CES, though, wascertainly a very important milestone. It waseerily impressive, seeing major corporationssuch as HP, Samsung, Texas Instruments andmany more co-operating with much smallercompanies such as ours, and operating inharmony to deliver the UWB story.” At CES Focusset out its stall with targets of deliveringwireless video ranging from 880Mbps at 8meters to 37 mbps at 40+ meters.

Which side of the divide to fall?

So the providers say they have product (or candemonstrate actual chips anyway - and arepromising to ship you product soon) and theindustry giants are behind the technology. Withjust the matter of there being two types of UWBto chose from, and limited regulatory support,where does that leave us? Or rather, where doesit leave a consumer electronics company that isconvinced by the publicity, has equipment suchas home cinema systems, video and stillcameras, PCs and mobile devices that all wantto share rich media content? Because if they doimplement UWB in their consumer products,they may have to quickly go into re-design modeif the market chooses VHS over their Betamax(to use an oft-quoted simile). What’s more, theycan only currently sell any products they dobuild in the US market. Which is, admittedly, alarge and tech-savvy territory.

We are not going to tackle the technical debatebetween MBOA and DS-UWB here. Beyond thefact that we are not sufficiently technical to dothe subject justice (though we will provideopportunities for those that are in a later issue),Incisor has looked at this before, and there arearguments for either solution. Both MB-OFDMand DS-UWB unquestionably provide workingUWB solutions.

Both are vying for the attention of the IEEE inthe race to establish an UWB standard, and thiswill continue. While this article was being

written, another IEEE meeting was held inMonterrey, California, and the issue of whichUWB flavour would achieve dominance inestablishing the standard was again on theagenda. Incisor has spoken to a number ofpeople that attended this meeting andunderstands that a state of complete and utterstalemate exists, with no progress having beenmade since the last meeting. We get the feelingthat many of the participants are now getting alittle tired and emotional, with plenty of toysbeing thrown out of prams. If there is ever to bea standard for posturing and sabre-rattling,surely this is the role model for the creation ofthe spec.

More than one participant has told us that ithas been acknowledged that no further progresscan be made through talking and furthermeetings, as vast amounts of time and resourceare being wasted.

Mark Bowles summed it up this way: ‘The IEEEstandards battle over UWB has been overblownin the press. By July 2003 both sides, Freescaleand MBOA, realized that the deadlock would notbe resolved within the walls of the IEEE butinstead needed to be taken to the market for aruling. The IEEE process became irrelevant atthat point because both camps had power toblock the other since 75% majority is needed towin. The market has since ruled and MBOA wonresoundingly.’

Apparently, the most likely next developmentis that there will be a technical showdown in thenext few months – May has been suggested -where each party is required to demonstrate afully working hardware solution, with allelements of performance against claims beingmeasured. A pretty clear way of deciding awinner, but will this shoot out at the UWB-OKCorral resolve this matter? Only time will tell.

Staccato’s Mark Bowles unconcerned by IEEE stalemate

continued

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

15

MBOA – big numbers, big names

There is one factor, though, that is undeniable.That is the weight of numbers advantageenjoyed by the MBOA. Read the list of 170MBOA member companies on its web site(www.multibandofdm.org), and it is hard not tobe impressed, especially when that list includessuch luminaries as Texas Instruments, Intel,Microsoft, HP, Sony, Hitachi, Nokia, NEC, Philips,Samsung, Toshiba and Seiko Epson and manymore big names. These are quality supportersand a lot of them are big time consumerelectronics companies. The UWB Forum hasissued a press release stating that it now has100 members. Check out it’s listing atwww.uwbforum.org, though, and it is muchharder to spot ‘names’. Only Freescale, Motorola(kinda predictable), Samsung and RFMicrodevices stand out (note though that both ofthe last two are also MBOA members - it’s calledfence-sitting, more of which later). Mark Bowlespithily summed up the imbalance in last month’sissue of Incisor, “Despite the publicity, the DS-UWB camp is just a couple of companies. TheMBOA enjoys the support of 9 out of the top 10semiconductor companies (the majority ofwhich already have MBOA silicon projectsunderway), all of the top CE companies, and allof the major PC and PC peripheral players, thetop handset vendors in the world (exceptMotorola), and the organizations of WiMedia,Wireless USB and the 1394 TA. Freescalebasically has the support of themselves andmaybe Motorola for now”.

That’s as may be, but despite the fact that theMBOA has more and more powerful members,the UWB Forum maintains that DS-UWB has atime to market advantage. Prior to the dot comcrash in 2001 a number of companies wereworking on developing UWB technology, and ofthose, only Xtreme Spectrum (and Pulse-Link)survived. Xtreme is a company in whichFreescale Semiconductor invested (akaswallowed), and the legacy of Xtreme’s priordevelopment has meant that Freescale has beenable to hit the market with its DS-UWB solutiona little before the MBOA companies. How farahead? About 6 months by most people’sreckoning, but some of the gnarlier, pepper-breathed representatives of the MBOA havebeen heard questioning the veracity ofFreescale’s claims.

Is Freescale’s silicon readily available? Or not?Incisor was told that a potential customer calledFreescale regarding their UWB EVK, and

received the following reply: ‘We do not haveany platform available for the general public atthis time. Freescale will be introducing a lowcost (less that $1K USD) UWB Evaluation Kit atthe end of March 2005. This evaluation kit willallow testing of several radio modes (forperformance and interference testing) as well asthe ability to perform data transfer and videostreaming. It will allow operation at severalspeeds up to 110 Mbps. It is an evaluation, notdevelopment, platform and will not enable MAC protocol development. A full featureddevelopment platform will be introduced in the2H of 2005.’ This, it must be said, is hard tosquare with Freescale’s public claims.

Give me UWB, and give it to me NOW!

The general view is that Freescale will winsome business simply because it will have UWBproduct first. And, in what is an unusual situationfor the tech industry. We are used to writingabout technologies that are looking forapplications/markets. Here the tables are turnedand there are customers out there that want awireless standard that does what UWB does,and they want it now. Consumers are todayusing devices that create, manipulate anddistribute rich, digital media – video, photo andother forms of imagery, sound, etc. Productssuch as camcorders, still cameras, homecinemas, hard disk recorders and set top boxesfor TVs, MP3 players, smartphones, PDAs and allsorts of mobile computing devices. At somepoint they all need to move that content fromone place to another. For once its not the casethat it will be useful to have a new, very highspeed wireless solution soon – these customershave been needing it for months if not years and

the need just keeps growing. Our separate storywith Sony confirms all of this.

Incisor’s assessment is that it will be possibleto buy DS-UWB products in the US at least sometime around mid-year, but buyers need to bewary. Depending on the way the market goes, aproduct that they buy mid-2005, based aroundDS-UWB, could be obsolete (or at least of limitedinteroperability and therefore usefulness) withinsix months.

An iron grip, or loosely held?

So let’s reassess the situation. There is atechnology called UWB that is rushing to market.It only has regulatory approval in the USA (butthat will change – see separate story). There isa question mark over exactly what our UWB willlook like (MBOA? DS-UWB?), - BUT – there isstrong consumer demand and therefore it isunlikely that the governing bodies – from theIEEE to the ITU, the MBOA to the UWB Forum –will be able to stop UWB devices being rushed tomarket. These devices may be demonstratingnot only one of two possible technicalbackbones, but quite likely a whole bunch ofproprietary ‘enhancements’ here and there tofacilitate features specific to some vendor’smarket sectors. If there is one way in whichUWB is absolutely not like Bluetooth at this pointin time, it is this. The Bluetooth SIG kept an irongrip on the way the Bluetooth standard wasdeveloped. There was no leeway that could havepermitted a company to market products andcall them Bluetooth-enabled unless thatcompany was a BSIG member, the productcomplied fully with BSIG guidelines, had beenthrough all required testing and had beencertified as compliant. The BSIG meantbusiness, too, and employed good lawyers.

And this is where UWB could benefit frombeing more like Bluetooth, and many of itsmembers know this. Over the course ofpreparing this feature, representatives of bothMBOA and DS-UWB companies have openlyassociated UWB with Bluetooth, and have talked

FreescaleUWB silicon –they say the camera doesn’t lie, butsceptics question - can you buy it?

Wireless connectivity is high on the wish list of consumersinstalling home cinema systems

continued

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

Wireless Snippets

16

off the record about matters that we cannotcurrently disclose. Incisor approached the BSIGfor comment, but at the moment they don’t wantto talk. Which is fair enough. As we acknowledgeabove, part of the reason for Bluetooth’ssuccess, which is what draws others to want toreplicate its modus operandi, is that it (the BSIG)did exercise proper control over the way thestandard was managed – internally, and in theway information was disclosed to the outsideworld (OK – it screwed up a bit by suffering theconsequences of some over-hyping in the earlydays – BUT, it learned the lesson).

Staccato’s Bowles commented: ‘Some havespeculated that UWB and Bluetooth are on acollision course but I see it differently. UWB is aPHY technology and an unlicensed spectrumresource that can be leveraged by Wireless USB,Wireless 1394, Wireless DVI, TCP/IP, andBluetooth alike. The question is really about

standardizing a UWB PHY and MAC that can beleveraged for multiple protocols, in multipleapplication segments, for multiple regulatorygeographies. The MBOA/WiMedia PHY/MACcombination has specifically addressed thesequestions and it would make a great choice tosupport next generation Bluetooth.’

All that Incisor will say for now is that therelook likely to be interesting developments tocome in this area. More of which, soon.

Bluetooth is not the only wireless associationwith which UWB is connecting. Although this isnot official yet, we have it on good authority thatwe could soon be hearing wedding bells, withthe MBOA the handsome groom and WiMEDIAthe blushing bride. And Freescale’s Rofheart wasmaking noises about DS-UWB’s closeentwinement with the 1394 trade association.

So, concluding this UWB magnum opus, isUWB going to happen? And is it the new

Bluetooth? The answer to the former isundoubtedly yes. Though, if this was reliant onthe various parties promoting UWB solutions tobe co-operating to create one stable, clear-cutstandard which was the basis for thedevelopment of easy to use products thatdemonstrated pan-industry interoperability, thenwe would raise an eyebrow and say – maybe,but when? However, there is currently too muchmarket pull. Vendors will have to buildsomething to satisfy the demand for a very highdata rate, low power wireless solution.

And the latter – is UWB the new Bluetooth?That one is much harder to answer. Incisor feelsthat this is a truly fascinating element of thiswhole discussion, with important developmentsto come. We look forward to covering this inmore detail in future issues.

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

Wireless Snippets

WLAN/WiFiPENNSYLVANIAN GOVERNORS TRY TOSTOP THE WORLD

The "pithy phrase of the month" prize goesto Dana Blankenhorn, business journalist andfounder of Interactive Age Daily, whocommented on the recent Pennsylvania lawbanning municipal WiFi: "Verizon thinks it canstop the future. No. They can stop it inPennsylvania, but they can't stop the future."

FATPORT AND REMOTEPIPES LINK OVERWI-FI INTERNET ACCESS

FatPort, an Ignition Point company, andRemotePipes, Inc., a provider of globalwireless Internet access solutions, has signeda distribution and roaming agreement toenable RemotePipes and their channelpartner’s customers to connect to the Internetand corporate networks via the extensiveFatPort Wireless Internet Access network.

RemotePipes and FatPort have completedthe integration of the FatPort network of Wi-Fihotspots into the RemotePipes IP Roamerbranded global Internet access network,which consists of over 25,000 global dial-upand Wi-Fi access points in 150 countries.

RemotePipes was forecasting that the IP Roamernetwork would span over 35,000 dialup and WiFizones and hotspots by the end of 2004 and wellover 50,000 locations and hot spots by 2005.

BANDSPEED ANNOUNCES WLAN PATENT Bandspeed has been awarded a patent on

improved wireless crosstalk cancellation andinterference suppression technology. The patentdescribes new techniques which can improve802.11n signal reliability and clarity, and it isapplicable in MIMO (multiple-in, multiple-out)systems.

“The patent describes methods to performsource separation, which can be used toenhance standard source separation (MIMO)techniques that separate frequency overlappedstreams by also exploiting diversity in time,”said Stan Skafidas, co-founder and CTO,Bandspeed.

WORLDWIDE WLAN UNITS CONTINUE TO GROW IN 3Q04

In 3Q04, Wi-Fi unit shipments increased 12%from 2Q04. 10.99 million units shipped in 3Q04compared to 9.82 million units in 2Q04

according to market research company In-Stat/MDR.

Strong growth segments included 802.11gNICs and APs. The 802.11g standard is thefaster successor to the popular 802.11b. An802.11g access point will support both802.11b and 802.11g clients. Similarly, aportable computer with an 802.11g NIC canaccess existing 802.11b access points as wellas newer 802.11g access points. NIC unitshipments for 802.11g increased 32% from2.83 million units in 2Q04 to 3.75 million unitsin 3Q04. AP unit shipments for 802.11gincreased 30% to 3.55 million in 3Q04 from2.74 million in 2Q04.

The multimode NIC market saw healthygrowth as well. Multimode NICs are capable ofoperating at 2.4GHz or 5GHz. Unit shipmentsfor multimode NICs increased 17% from2Q04. Revenue for multimode NICs increased14%.

17

Incisor welcomes new sponsor:

Developers of single chip, all-CMOS UWB solutionsIncisor magazine is enormously pleased to

welcome on board a new main sponsor from theworld of Ultrawideband (UWB). This wirelesstechnology is currently enjoying a dramaticexpansion in activity.

As reported elsewhere in this issue, Intel chiefexecutive Craig Barrett singled out UWB as a keywireless technology in his keynote speech at CES.Operating at 480 Mbps, UWB will eventually beintegrated into standard silicon processors, allowingconsumers to quickly transfer hundreds ofmegabytes at a time.

Incisor’s new sponsor Staccato Communications isa key player in the UWB industry. The company is aWireless USB and ultrawideband (UWB) RFtechnology pioneer based in San Diego, Calif. Thefabless semiconductor company serves theconsumer electronics, personal computing andmobile phone industries with single-chip, all-CMOSwireless solutions and places a strong emphasis onwireless USB applications.

Staccato was foundedin 2002 by Roberto Aielloand other UWB and RFCMOS veterans to pursuea fabless semiconductorbusiness model. Staccatohas since built the first all-CMOS MultiBandOFDM silicon prototypethat is within the guide-lines of current regulatory

requirements and demonstrates the viability of low

cost all-CMOS high-performance radios for WirelessUSB and other MBOA applications.

Staccato is currently working with its partners andcustomers in the consumer electronic, personalcomputing and mobile phone industries to providesolutions for Wireless USB and 1394 applications.Staccato is implementing its all-CMOS silicon toachieve the market requirements for low-costsolutions. Both the PHY (physical layer) and MAC(medium access control) architectures have beendesigned according to MBOA specifications with theneeds of Wireless USB and 1394 in mind. Staccatoenvisions true single-chip, all-CMOS radio modulesfor low-risk implementation.

Staccato has forged strategic industry allianceswith partners including Abocom, Coretronic, Fujitsu,Intel, Samsung, TDK, and NEC Electronics toaccelerate time-to-market of UWB-enabled productsand is financed with $27.5M from tier 1 venturecapital firms. Staccato's leadership role in theindustry and standards forums provides the companywith a clear understanding of product requirements.

The company is leading industry development of thefirst Wireless USB all-CMOS silicon and integratingits silicon into miniature modules to enable fast time-to-market and minimal design-in risk.

Members of the company's executive team havepromoted all aspects of bringing ultrawideband intothe mainstream including years of work seekingregulatory approval with the FCC, and are currentlyactive in promoting industry standards through theWireless USB Promoter Group (Key Contributors),1394 Trade Association (board member), MultiBandOFDM Alliance SIG (founders and steeringcommittee), WiMedia Alliance (contributor members),IEEE 802.15.3a (founding participants and pasttechnical editor), and IEEE 802.15.4a (foundingleadership and vice chairman).

As 2005 develops, it will become apparent thatUWB is an enormously important wireless sector.Incisor sponsor Staccato Communications is a leader,and one of the companies driving the standardforward. Here at Incisor publisher Click I.T., we canpromise that the Incisor / Staccato partnership willbring news of dramatic developments in the comingmonths, and will help our readers be appraised of allof the latest UWB developments.

For further information:Web: www.staccatocommunications.comEmail: Business enquiries-business@staccatocommunications.comEmail: General -info@staccatocommunications.com

Robert Aiello, founder and CTOof Staccato Communications

Staccato attracts Rick Kornfeld as CEO and Marty Colambatto as chairmanStaccato announced at the end of December

that Rick Kornfeld has joined its executivemanagement team as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately. Mr.Kornfeld earned distinction for many innovationsin the field of wireless voice and data

communications. Most recently he was vicepresident and general manager of TexasInstruments’ Wireless Centre responsible for TI’swireless chipset business. Additionally, Staccatoannounced that Marty Colombatto, former vice-president and general manager of Broadcom’s

Networking Business Unit, has also recentlyjoined Staccato’s board of directors aschairman.

Dr. Roberto Aiello is transitioning into a full-time CTO role while retaining most of his currentduties at Staccato.

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

18

1394 Trade Association moves onProtocol Adaptation Layer for

MBOA MAC

Alereon intros 480Mbps UWB eval kit

The 1394 Trade Association is set to moveforward on the development of a new protocoladaptation layer (PAL) that will support theMultiband OFDM medium access controller(MAC) scheduled to debut in 2005. The 1394Trade Association is a worldwide organizationdedicated to the enhancement andproliferation of the IEEE 1394 multimediastandard which defines a high speed serialbus. This bus is also named FireWire by Appleor i.Link by Sony.

Work will begin in January under the leadershipof the trade association’s Wireless Working Group,chaired by Peter Johansson. Designed as astandard convergence layer between the MAC andapplications developed for wired 1394, the PAL willbuild upon the 1394 infrastructure, including dataformats, connection management schemes andtime synchronization procedures, to ensure top-quality wireless FireWire service. “The FireWireinfrastructure is extensive and well-proven, and itwill provide the MBOA MAC with the middleware

essential for unsurpassed wireless quality ofservice,” Johansson said.

Adaptation of the 1394 infrastructure to theplanned MBOA MAC enables the reuse ofmiddleware for streaming audio/video and othermultimedia applications. The PAL permits IEEE1394 devices and protocols to be used in awireless environment at speeds up to 480megabits per second, while allowing compatibilitywith existing wired 1394 devices. “Wireless 1394”consumer electronics products will interoperatewith each other and can work with FireWireproducts via “wireless 1394.1” bridges, which aresupported by the wireless 1394 PAL. Wireless1394.1 bridges are based on IEEE Std 1394.1-2004 and incorporate a wired 1394 node and awireless node. The bridge routes both "best effort"and streaming multimedia data between the wiredand wireless domains.

The PAL will be the third to appear on theWireless Working Group’s agenda. The first, a PALtailored to the IEEE 802.15.3 MAC, was completed

last spring and is currently under revision to alignit with IEEE P802.15.3b. In the fall, the 1394 TradeAssociation announced its planned collaborationwith the MultiBand OFDM Alliance to coordinatethe development of UWB and wireless 1394specifications, including the development of awireless 1394 PAL that supports the MBOA MAC.

The Wireless Working Group also participates inthe WiMedia Alliance's MAC ConvergenceArchitecture (WiMCA) project, with its focus ondeveloping common policies for UWB devices somultiple applications and users can share UWBresources.

As a footnote, the Wireless USB Promoter Group,which was formed in February 2004 to define thefirst standard for high speed wireless personalconnectivity, reached a membership milestone inthis month by gaining more than 85 membercompanies since soliciting contributors to theWireless USB (WUSB) specification definition inNovember 2004.

Alereon, which is seen to be one of the leadingfabless semiconductor company developingwireless solutions for the UWB and Wireless USB(W-USB), has announced availability of theAL4000-EVK Evaluation Kit, which is an UWBhardware and software environment fordeveloping and testing UWB applications. Thekit is based on the Alereon AL4000 series UWBchipset which operates at speeds from 55Mbpsto 480Mbps; Alereon claims that this is nearly 5times faster than any other UWB personal areanetwork (PAN) chipset.

The MBOA compatible AL4000-EVK combinesAlereon’s AL43000-EVB MAC and AL4400-EVB PHYevaluation boards with a PC motherboard in an 8”enclosure. The kit also incorporates multiple USB,IEEE 1394 (Firewire), Ethernet, video, audio andserial ports and includes a DVD drive, thereby

creating a complete platform for prototyping ordeveloping PC or consumer electronic-basedapplications. Initial systems will come withMicrosoft’s XP operating system, with both

Windriver’s VxWorks and Linux installationsavailable.

Alereon’s AL4300-EVB MAC evaluation board is atthe heart of the new test platform. The PCI-basedMAC provides an option slot for an MBOAcompatible PHY module based on Alereon’stransceiver and 0.13micron mixed-signal CMOSbaseband processor.

“We are very pleased with the rapid progress ofour technology development, including the world’sfirst demonstration of UWB connections at 480Mbps.,” said Eric Broockman, chief executive officerof Alereon. “The introduction of the AL4000-EVK isyet another important milestone in the company’sgrowth, as partners and customers increasinglylook to Alereon for leading MBOA-compliant UWBsolutions.”

CES provided launch pad for Alereon EVK

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

19

All discussions regarding UWB’s value aretempered by the fact that this is a wirelesstechnology with roots deeply-embedded inmilitary and government agency seriousapplications – radar systems for missiles andso forth, airspace control systems etc. As such,its not as straightforward to obtain regulatoryapproval if you want to create a standard touse UWB for everyday applications.

The FCC set the marker when it approved UWBfor use in the USA in 2002. Somewhat surprisingthis, as the US authorities are not known fortaking the lead in such matters.

The regulatory situation outside of the USAwas the subject of many of Incisor’s discussionswith UWB company representatives. Europe isan enormously important market, and heremany eyes were looking to the UK regulatorOfcom, which was due to report its initialfindings at the end of 2004. Ofcom hadcommissioned independent consultants MasonCommunications and DotEcon to report on theoverall value – or otherwise – of allowing UWBto gain regulatory approval in the UK. An extractfrom the concluding section of this report iscontained in the panel overleaf.

Ofcom’s summary statement was published onthe 19th of January, and is published in full belowin order that we can’t be accused ofmisinterpretation. We have highlighted the keystatements. Incisor subsequently contacted MasonCommunications to help interpret the Ofcomannouncement, and their / our comments follow:

Ofcom proposals for Ultra Widebandhigh-speed wireless services

Ofcom today published its proposed policy inrespect of the use of Ultra Wideband (UWB)devices in the UK, which Ofcom plans to adopt

as part of ongoing discussions within Europe ona harmonised approach to UWB. Independentanalysis has pointed to potential benefits for UKbusinesses and consumers were UWB devicesto be allowed.

Ofcom is seeking views on whether suchdevices should be allowed, and also whichtechnical restrictions would mitigate the risk ofinterference to other wireless services. Ofcomhas set out proposals for such technicalrestrictions, and is also undertaking furtheranalysis to determine the likely impact of anyintroduction of UWB technology on specificexisting and future services.

Ofcom is required, under Section 3 of theCommunications Act 2003, to secure theoptimal use of the spectrum and secure theavailability throughout the UK of a wide range ofservices. Section 4 of the 2003 Act requiresOfcom to promote competition and contribute tothe development of the European internalmarket. Under Section 154 of the 2003 Act,Ofcom must also have regard to economic andother benefits that may arise from the use ofwireless telegraphy.

Background UWB devices transmit signals simultaneously

over a wide range of frequencies and aretherefore capable of a far higher data transferrate than devices using similar wirelesstechnologies.

UWB devices could, for example:• Deliver wireless connections between DVD

players, displays and speakers; • Provide a high speed wireless link between

digital cameras and computers; and • Link PCs, printers and storage devices in a

local area network.

UWB is already allowed in the UK underlicence to allow engineers to probe runways andother surfaces for faults, help firefighters detectpeople through walls and for other specialistindustry uses.

Ofcom’s initial view, on which it is seekingopinion, is that to allow UWB on a licence-exempt basis, and subject to appropriatetechnical restrictions, would align well with itsstatutory duties. An independent economicstudy, prepared by Mason Communications andDotEcon and also published today by Ofcom, hasestimated that significant economic benefits arelikely to result from UWB use for the UKeconomy.

Minimisation of interference Identification and exploration of measures to

avoid harmful interference, particularly toservices such as 3G mobile, wireless broadbandand radio astronomy, are a key priority forOfcom. Ofcom recognises that the potential forinterference, and the likely level of any suchinterference, needs to be weighed carefullyagainst the potential benefits of introducingUWB.

The Mason / DotEcon study proposes atechnical 'mask' - a set of requirements that allUWB devices would have to adhere to - whichOfcom suggests would significantly reduce therisk of interference to most spectrum users.Ofcom is also commissioning further researchinto specific areas as indicated in theconsultation document.

UWB in the USIn February 2002 the US Federal

Communications Commission (FCC) authorisedthe commercial deployment of UWB equipmentin the US . It is possible that UWB equipment

Can UWB achieve regulatory approvaloutside of the USA?

Incisor examines the UK regulator’s findings with analysis from Janette Dobson,

Mason Communications

continued

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

20

licensed for use in the US may not beappropriate for use in the UK. Ofcom thereforewishes to finalise its approach to UWB asquickly as possible in order to give clarity tostakeholders in both countries.

Next steps In April 2005, the European Commission will

consider initial work on identifying a harmonisedapproach to UWB adoption across Europe.Ofcom intends to use this consultation to gatheropinion on its proposed approach so that it caninput into subsequent European harmonisationwork with the aim of reaching a pan-Europeanposition that is well aligned with the interests ofthe UK.

The closing date for responses is 24 March2005. The consultation document and theMason / DotEcon study can be found atwww.ofcom.org.uk

Incisor comment:As the statement above mentions, Mason

Communications was employed by Ofcom to dothe background research necessary to makeany decisions. We talked with Janette Dobson,senior consultant at Mason, and one of thepeople responsible for producing the UWBreport.

The key statement that Ofcom made was thatat this stage it looked likely that approving UWBwould bring net benefits to the UK market, from

consumer level right up to overall financialbalances. As soon as this statement had beenreleased (before, in fact, as some people hadmanaged to obtain pre-announcementfeedback), UWB companies were heraldingOfcom’s positive view as clearing the way tomass global regulatory approval.

Typically for such statements, though, theOfcom announcement doesn’t tell us muchmore than that basic observation that UWBcould be OK. Dobson agreed. ‘Its quite ‘green’,and appears to ask a lot of questions’ she said,adding ‘Ofcom is cautious as it has to be awareof how its decisions will affect or be affected bythose of the EU Commission.’

Perhaps naively, we suggested that it would bea long time before we had a final decision fromOfcom. After all, hadn’t it taken years to get tothis stage? Dobson disagreed ‘I firmly believethat Ofcom is committed to bringing this to aconclusion sooner rather than later. Definitelybefore the end of 2005, and maybe as soon asthe middle of the year.’

Incisor still has questions over how atechnology can gain regulatory approval whenthere is so much disparity in the ranks over thedefinition of the standard and its technicalbackground, and sought Dobson’s views. ‘Ibelieve that at least for a period of time, therewill be different versions of UWB coming tomarket, perhaps matched to differentapplications,’ she commented, continuing

‘Probably Pulse-Link will stay away fromconsumer electronics, sticking instead to nichemarkets like military, transport and health. Whenyou consider the MBOA and DS-UWB debate, itmay be the case that both prevail, and some oftheir products will not interoperate. The DScompanies could become successful in homeentertainment systems, and the MBOA in the PCspace.’

Was Dobson a fence-sitter, or did she believethat one of the two main UWB offerings woulddominate? ‘I believe that the MBOA will comeout the winner, due to the key support ofcompanies like Intel, and the sheer number ofcompanies behind MB-OFDM UWB.’

So there we are. Ofcom seems to be clearingthe way to approve UWB in the UK, and hopefullyEurope. That’s enough for many of the UWBmarketeers!

The story that follows provides more detailsfrom Mason Communications’ report for Ofcom,and Mason’s own recommendations.

Mason Communications recommends draft ETSI standard

Mason Communications’ report wascommissioned by Ofcom to provide anindependent analysis of the costs andbenefits which are likely to be associatedwith the deployment of UWB technology inthe United Kingdom, in order to assistOfcom in its development of policy in thisarea.

Mason Communications wished to clarifythat the assumptions, conclusions andrecommendations expressed in the reportwere entirely those of Mason and DotEconand should not be attributed to Ofcom.

With the usual risks associated withextracting conclusions from a long (218 page)

report, and without having space to include allthe qualifying statements and assumptions,Incisor can report that Mason Communicationsmade the following concluding statement:

“The objective of our study has been toquantify the potential value of UWB PANapplications to the United Kingdom, based onassessment of net benefits versus potentialinterference costs to existing radio users. Ourconclusion is that UWB PAN applications havethe potential to make a very valuablecontribution to the UK economy, generatingbillions of pounds in value over the next 15 years(cost calculations relate only to UMTSinterference, which, as discussed in this report,

is expected to account for the vast majority ofall external costs).

For the period to 2020, net private benefitsexceed external costs under all the regulatoryscenarios considered by the year 2020(however, in the case of the FCC mask, apositive net value is not achieved until 2020 and significant external costs arepresent in the period preceding this). Thereare large variations in value between thealternative scenarios, as illustrated in Figure7.1. The value to the United Kingdom is likely to be maximised if chipsets deployedmeet the draft ETSI standard or a modifiedversion of this.

continued

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

21

RecommendationsBased on these conclusions and taking into

account the limitations of this study including thefact that the costs associated with someservices have not been quantified, we offer thefollowing recommendations:1. Ofcom pursues a policy within Europe of

promoting the draft ETSI UWB mask for UWBPAN applications, possibly subject tomodifications of the roll-off below 3GHz (seepoint 2 below). This recommendation is basedon our understanding from manufacturers thatUWB chipsets can meet the tighter limitsapplying at the edge of the mask relative tothe FCC mask.

2. There appears to be scope for tightening theroll off of the ETSI mask below 3 GHz tointroduce additional 10- 20dB attenuation inthe 2 GHz band without eroding UWB benefits.At a PSD level of -85 dBm/MHz, we havecalculated that costs to UMTS operators willbe minimal. Therefore, there does not appearto be any compelling reason for applyingpower restrictions below this level. The casefor imposing a limit between -65 and -85dBm/MHz rests on the assumption that UWBchipsets under development can meet anytighter restrictions, which is subject to furtherverification with manufacturers. Anyconstraint that required new chipsets to be

developed for the European market and thussignificantly delayed the launch of UWB wouldhave a detrimental impact on value.

3. Both the upper and lower bands should be madeavailable for UWB 1 . Restricting UWB to the lowerband would potentially constrain future value forno obvious benefits. Restricting UWB to theupper band only would be value destructive.

4. There is scope for further investigations into theinterference effects of UWB on various services,including wireless broadband, UMTS andaeronautical radar. This might lead to additionalinsights in relation to the detailed regulation ofUWB emissions for UWB PAN and otherenvisaged applications of UWB. Further workcould be conducted to quantify the interferencecosts to Fixed Wireless Access in the 3.4 GHzband when addressing the distributionalconcerns of UK FWA operators, as our analysissuggests potential detrimental interferenceoccurring to those systems. However, we think itunlikely that this will impact the principleconclusion of this study, which is that Ofcom’spolicy should be based on the draft ETSI UWBmask, because the level of UWB benefitsoccurring by 2010 in this scenario are predictedto significantly outweigh costs (the differentialbeing over £60 million at 2010). As highlightedby the scope of work, this study does not

address the potential impact of UWB on futuretechnology investment. It is noted that withinsome industries considered in this study,notably 3G, there are ongoing developmentsin technology implying significant futureinvestment in systems using the 3 to 5 GHzportion of the spectrum, including introductionof High Speed Downlink Packet Access(HSDPA) and potential expansion of mobileservices into other frequency bands 2 . We notethat Ofcom may wish to consider potentialfuture utilisation of the 3 to 5 GHz portion ofthe radio spectrum in its setting of the UWBregulatory framework.

5. This study focuses on UWB deployment inwireless PAN devices, which by their natureare generally used indoors. It is noted that thislimits the potential for interference comparedto UWB outdoor use. It is also noted that thenature of wireless PAN devices is that usersmight ‘roam’ outside of their normal operatingenvironment (e.g. a laptop user takes thelaptop outdoors). We note that the FCC hasimposed specific regulation on UWB outdooruse to limit interference to other radiosystems (such as prohibition on use ofexternal antennas). We recommend thatOfcom consider the adoption of similar rulesgoverning outdoor use in its overall policydetermination on UWB.

“Figure 7.1 graphic extracted from MasonCommunications (www.mason.biz) report “Valueof UWB Personal Area Networking Services to theUnited Kingdom - Final Report forOfcom”

1 This recommendation is based on consideration of existing uses of this spectrum; it is outside of the scope of this study to consider whether there are any future uses of spectrum in either the upperor lower bands that might be constrained by UWB deployment.

2 For instance, ERC/DEC/(02) 06 designates the frequency band 2500 – 2690 MHz as an extension band for 3G/IMT-2000 systems, following the decision taken at the World Radio Conference in 2000.”

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

Incisor interview:

22

continued

Sony embraces UWB, forecasts earlyproduct availability

Incisor talks to: Renaud Di FrancescoHead of EuropeanTechnology Standards Office, Sony.

In our preparation for Incisor’s UWB specialfocus issue, we knew that amongst otherangles that we had to cover there was thelegislatory issue, and the viewpoint of UWB’s main customers – major consumerelectronics companies.

Fortuitous it was, then, when we identifiedone contact that could provide a perspectiveon both. That contact is Renaud DiFrancesco, who is Head of Sony’s EuropeanTechnology Standards Office.

After all, Sony is not just any old consumerelectronics company, it is one of the leaders inpromoting the digital home concept, and hasmillions of real consumers using Sony video andstill cameras, and private and corporate users ofits IT products. What’s more, Sony is a leadingsupplier of home cinema systems, and in itsSony Pictures and Sony Music guises it is one ofthe world’s most prolific providers of film andmusic content. So, it not only sells the productsthat people watch movies and listen to musicon, it creates the media they are watching andlistening to, and therefore has a huge vestedinterest in enabling the most convenient accessto this rich content.

Di Francesco started off by explaining thebreadth of applications for UWB. “Even beforeyou start considering the consumer market, it isimportant to recognise that UWB has a lot ofvalue to the IT community,” he said. “Today wehave Bluetooth and WLAN. UWB-based WirelessUSB is here now and will be very big. In thehome, UWB will be used to connect videodevices – home cinemas and wall-mounted flatpanel TVs that currently require complex andinvasive installation. Sony is consideringdisplays that will integrate better with homedecoration and furnishings, looking more like apicture. Projectors will be much easier to mounton ceilings if wiring is not required between theprojector and the home cinema receiver. HD TVis just round the corner and as soon as a newchannel like this opens up it fills up veryquickly.”

Di Francesco went on to explain that for Sonythere are many factors that make UWBappealing. The high data rates everyone isaware of, but low power consumption ispossibly even more important, according to DiFrancesco. “Low power design is centric toeverything Sony does today. Sony is the maindeveloper of Lithium Ion battery technology andthe number 1 supplier. Battery life is criticalacross all of the technology sectors we work inand we are constantly looking at ways to reducepower consumption. The low power of UWBmakes it attractive for use in small, battery-powered PAN devices, as well as mainspowered IT and consumer electronicsproducts.”

We asked Di Francesco how Sony waspositioning UWB amongst the short-rangewireless standards? “We are active in a numberof wireless standards. Bluetooth has reachedthe stage whereby it is a fixture in mobilephones. NFC and RFID are both very importantto Sony, as both a consumer electronicscompany, and as a corporate user of RFID. Thelatter results from our being a supplier to Wal-Mart, which has mandated that all its suppliersmust use RFID” Di Francesco explained. In fact,Wal-Mart has this week announced that it plansto spend $3bn (£1.8bn) over the next few yearson a new inventory tracking technology thatuses RFID to keep tabs on merchandise.

NFC is a technology that Sony is working withon a different level, but which links closely to its

interest in UWB. Di Francesco described howNFC would work with UWB – and othertechnologies. “We are reaching what we call thethird age of the mobile phone, where people willenable secure transactions by ‘phone waving’ –passing the handset close to another device.NFC provides layers under which you can useany wireless network link, once the two partiesknow each other – meaning that they haveestablished a trusted link. In this way, NFC – alow bit rate, short range wireless technology canfacilitate a secure connection over which largevolumes of data can then be communicated in ashort period of time.” One example of how thiscould be used was where a customer with anNFC/UWB–enabled smartphone could buy amovie – from a music video to a full-length film– from an advertising poster. OK, it would haveto be a ‘smartposter’, but nonetheless by settingup a secure payment over an NFC link, thecustomer would then be able to download themovie over the much faster UWB connections.Neat, eh? Sony has entered into a joint venturewith Japanese network operator NTT DoCoMo todevelop this technology.

Sony believes smartphones will soon be NFC/UWB enabled

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

Incisor interview continued:

23

That Sony is considering this type ofapplication demonstrates that it is thinkingahead, to the longer-term benefits of adoptingUWB. However, Di Francesco also admitted thatshort-term expediency is a factor. And whatdoes this mean? It means that although Sony isa strong supporter of MBOA UWB, it recentlyannounced that it would carry out UWBdemonstrations using DS-UWB silicon at a USevent. “Its true that at this point we are keepingboth bases covered,” said Di Francesco. “Sonyis a technology leader, and needs to be able toprovide technology solutions when thecustomers want to buy them. This means thatwe could first bring DS-UWB products to marketin those countries where they have regulatoryapproval, and switch to MBOA at a later point.”

There are two more factors in Sony’stechnology selection process to select theultimate UWB victor. The first is quite simple.“Unless a technology works properly andinteroperates seamlessly with apparentlycompatible devices, it will die. Customers willnot use it,” said Di Francesco, continuing, “Thisis equally applicable to both MBOA and DS-UWB, so both parties must work to create a solidstandard that developers can work to, and mustimplement rigid and mandatory interoperabilitytest programmes.”

The second factor is perhaps the bigger issue– regulatory approval. After acknowledging thatthe FCC had set the marker by approving UWBuse in the USA, Di Francesco considered thechallenge for the rest of the world. “Wherever

spectrum is being shared, there will inevitablybe incumbents claiming interference. They aretrying to protect their own back yard. In the caseof UWB this is a very diverse selection, includingsatellite operators, airports, maritime, amateurradio operators and even astronomers. They areall lobbying to pre-book and protect theirspectrum allocation, and will protest thatanything new will disturb them. The governingbodies have to try to manage and satisfyeveryone’s interests.”

The matter doesn’t need to be as complicatedas it is often portrayed, according to DiFrancesco, who feels that co-existence is thekey, and is perfectly achievable. “Bluetoothshowed how it could be done. It is operatingadjacent to and even over-lapping otherwireless standards, and without interfering withthem. Looking further back, DECT has been ahuge success, and is very robust to noise andinterference. There just needs to be awillingness to make it happen. With UWB theproblem should be small as we are taking aboutshort distances.”

All of this is undoubtedly true, but for anyoneto be able to sell UWB products for use outsideof the USA, that regulatory approval is needed.As reported in this issue, during the secondweek of January, UK regulator Ofcom releaseddetails of its initial findings, having carried outresearch into the benefits or otherwise ofallowing UWB use in the UK. While positive,there is a lot more work to be done, not least tointegrate UK legislation with that of the rest of

Europe. How far away is approval, we asked DiFrancesco, who surely must know as well asanyone? “Sony participates in the FrequencyHarmonisation Group and we are thereforefamiliar with Ofcom and the European agencies’views. For them it is still a case of balancingbetween the UWB companies’ needs and theviews of the incumbents. Its possible, forexample, that one or more network operator,which has had to pay billions for its 3G licence,may complain that enabling UWB could impacton its ability to recoup its investment – in theexisting spectrum and future allocations. Thatsaid, I am confident that the regulators will takethe end-users interests into account, and find asolution.”

That is encouraging, but we still needed toknow the availability forecast. After all, for UWBto be more than a topic of conversation, it needsto be enabled in real products. Without givingaway any secrets, Renaud Di Francesco (who,with his job as Sony’s head of EuropeanTechnology Standards Office must be regardedas a reliable source) said he was confident thatUWB would receive regulatory approval inEurope before the end of 2005, and that Sonywould be one of the companies shipping UWB-enabled consumer products in the USAconsiderably sooner than that.

So now you know.

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

Wireless SnippetsWireless Snippets

WLAN/WiFiNEXT GEN BROADBAND WIRELESSACCESS CONCENTRATOR

HauteSpot Networks unveiled its nextgeneration Wireless Access Concentrator atduring December. The new HR-IXP42501routing device is based on the Intel XScaleIXP425 network processor combined with 4802.11a/b/g long range radio modules, andwill enable wireless service providers todesign exciting new services and applicationswith minimal cost and simple provisioning.

TRAPEZE INSTALLS WI-FI FOR HI-SOCIETYLe Rosey, Switzerland's oldest private school,

has chosen Trapeze Networks to provide aWLAN across its campus in Rolle. Institut LeRosey, known as one of the most exclusiveprivate education institutions in the world, playshost to students who come from some of theworld's wealthiest families. Ex-pupils includethe Duke of Kent, Dodie Fayed and PrinceRainier of Monaco.

The school is also believed to be the only

school in the world to span two seasonalcampuses. In spring and autumn, classes areheld in the facilities near the village of Rollebetween Lausanne and Geneva. For thewinter term, the entire student body moves toGstaad, home to the world's most elite ski resort and where skiing is part of the school'scurriculum.

24

The third anniversary of the FCC’s landmarkruling that allow the unlicensed use ofUltrawideband (UWB) spectrum is just weeksaway. And while it falls on St. Valentine’s Daynot everyone loves the technology. At least not yet.

The FCC ruling here in the States came threeyears sooner than in any other country. The skepticspredicted correctly that UWB would face aseemingly endless gauntlet of challenges on its wayto commercialization. UWB has met more than theusual resistance experienced by new wirelesstechnologies, and for good reason; it is the first realoverlay of unlicensed spectrum directly in thefrequency allocations of dozens of other licensedand unlicensed spectrum users.

UWB’s most significant opponents are theincumbent spectrum licensees who feel threatenedby the imminent deployment of UWB systems. Mostof their arguments are based on claims ofpotentially harmful interference, but probably moreoften they are concerned about the economicimplications to their existing businesses. After all,many of these incumbent spectrum licensees payenormous sums of money for their small slice ofspectrum and these UWB new-kids-on-the-blockwant access to a huge chunk of spectrum for free!However, as the path that UWB followed in the US isrepeated in other countries the fear of UWB –whether it’s economic or interference related – fearquickly shifts to greed.

In the three years since the FCC ruling, many ofUWB’s strongest opponents in the US have becomeits staunch supporters. Qualcomm and TrimbleNavigation both strongly opposed UWB, forinstance, but now view it as an important businessopportunity. Most have come to realize that UWB,properly regulated and specified, does not causeharmful interference to other wireless services. Andmore importantly, UWB enables fundamentally newfeatures for most connected devices, whethercurrently wired or wireless, creating tremendousnew economic opportunities.

Operators once viewed U-NII and ISMtechnologies like WiFi and Bluetooth as threats andnow have largely embraced them; the same is

occurring for UWB. In essence, incumbents in theUS have come to realize that their primaryresponsibility is to protect their market position,which means more than simply protecting theparticular slice of spectrum where their currentsystems operate.

The dynamic that happened in the US will repeatitself in other regulatory geographies soon, and atan accelerated rate. The interference debate, oncelargely relegated to voluminous theoretical technicaldebates, easily obfuscated by either side and trulyunderstood by a precious few, is quickly beingreduced to practical tests of real world devices inreal world conditions. 2005 will usher in a newphase of rational and practical regulatory rulings inmany parts of the world, leaving much of thetheoretical phase behind. If the Ofcom consultationsfrom their recent report are any indication, therational phase is already taking hold in the UK. TheUS approach and spectral mask will not likely beperfectly suitable for all geographies but aharmonization process based on realistic conditionsis certain to emerge.

Further reason to believe that UWB fear is turningto UWB greed is evident from events at CES 2005 inLas Vegas a few weeks ago:

- Microsoft’s Kosar Jaff explained to an audienceat IEEE’s CCNC conference preceding CES thatMicrosoft had been “working on a driver forWireless USB which they planned to release before

the end of the year”. A milestone that didn’t occur inthe history of Bluetooth or WiFi until much later.

- Nokia’s Marilyn Green explained to the sameCCNC audience Nokia’s preference for MBOA UWBbased on their own tests for harmful interferenceand coexistence with other mobile services in thesame handset.

- Intel’s CEO Craig Barrett dedicated a significantportion of his keynote to the vision of UWB enabledproducts and Intel’s commitment to make it happen.

- CES itself had a significant UWB exhibitorcontingent. A UWB MBOA TechZone hosted 16companies (HP, Intel, TI, Samsung, Philips,Mitsubishi, Taiyo Yuden, TDK, Staccato, and others)and 4 organizations (Wireless USB, WiMedia, MBOA,and 1394TA). There were many vendors withwireless demos and silicon demos spanning a largevariety of applications.

UWB is positive for the industry and for theconsumer because it truly enables fundamentallynew features that in turn can make all of ourgadgets more useful and more valuable. The morevaluable they are to consumers, the moreconsumers will want to use them, upgrade them,and maybe even pay a small premium for them fora short time. And incumbents stand to benefit themost if they embrace the exciting future thatultrawideband offers us all. As the US IndustrialistHenry J. Kaiser once said “Trouble is onlyopportunity dressed in work clothes”.

UWB - As Fear turns to GreedMark Bowles – Staccato Communications

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

25

Mitsubishi Electric demos W-UWBAnother global electronics giant aligned

itself with MBOA UWB at CES whenMitsubishi Electric unveiled a demonstrationof wireless ultrawideband technology forhome theatre. Jointly developed by corporateR&D labs in the US and Japan, MitsubishiElectric’s demonstration is based on theemerging standard from the MultiBandOFDM Alliance (MBOA).

The demonstration system showed howultrawideband (UWB) technology can eliminatewires and simplify installation of high-end hometheatre systems. It included a single transmitterunit that sends two independent high-definitiontelevision signals wirelessly to two high-enddisplay products: a plasma HDTV and a high-end

projector, both from Mitsubishi Electric.“Mitsubishi Electric has a long history of

leadership in the development and promotion ofdigital communications standards throughinternational organizations like MPEG, IEEE, andITU,” commented Dr. Hiroshi Koezuka, GeneralManager of the Information Technology R&DCentre for Mitsubishi Electric in Japan. “As oneof the original Contributors to the MBOA SIG, webelieve standardization of UWB technology willhelp insure broad adoption in the marketplace.”

While the demonstration system focused onUWB applied to home theatre, MitsubishiElectric anticipates other applications, includingin-car communications, wireless USB, and inter-board communications. Dr. Koezuka added,

“UWB technology has the potential to impactmany of the businesses Mitsubishi Electric is in,including consumer electronics,communications, industrial automation,transportation and building equipment. That iswhy our Corporate R&D group is an activecontributor to UWB standardization.”

Commenting on the home theatre application,Dr. Kent Wittenburg, VP and Technology LabDirector at Mitsubishi Electric ResearchLaboratories in the US, added, “Our R&Dinvestment in this area, including efforts indigital communications, advanced userinterfaces, and our contributions to the MBOAstandard, helps to ensure Mitsubishi Electric’sleadership in home theatre for years to come.”

Wipro’s MBOA MAC IP for release Wipro Technologies, the global IT services

division of Wipro Limited, has announced theavailability of MBOA MAC IP by Q2 2005.Wipro provides IT solutions and services,including systems integration, informationsystems outsourcing, package implementa-tion, software application development andmaintenance, and research and developmentservices to corporations globally. In theIndian market, Wipro is a leader in providingIT solutions and services for the corporate

segment in India offering system integration,network integration, software solutions andIT services.

MBOA MAC enjoys the support of manyindustry players from the Consumer Electronicsand PC industry and from industry bodies suchas WiMedia, USB IF and 1394 TA. Wipro’scustomisable MBOA MAC can be integrated intodevices such as Set Top Boxes, Digital TVs etc.

Wipro has developed expertise in thestandards-based silicon intellectual property

domain, and had developed several IPs thatspan technologies including WLAN, IEEE 1394(hardware and software IPs), USB and Ethernet.

“We have a full portfolio of IEEE 802.11 IPs andthe MBOA MAC IP further complements ourWireless IP portfolio. We will release the MBOAMAC IP to our customers soon. We are also fullycommitted to develop solutions around these IPslike Multimedia Distribution over Wireless, WirelessUSB, Digital TV solutions etc” said A Vasudevan,Vice President, VLSI, Wipro Technologies.

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

Wireless SnippetsWireless Snippets

BluetoothCSR ADDS TECHMARK AWARD TO 2004ACCOLADES

CSR has been awarded the 2004 techMARKAchievement of the Year Award, which recognises the top performing companies in the quotedtechnology industry. The award was collected byRichard Ord, Vice President of CSR's BluetoothBusiness Unit, at techMARK's awards dinner inDecember. The techMARK Awards Dinner issponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers and theLondon Stock Exchange.

RFIDPAXAR SOLUTION FOR METRO CORP

RFID specialist Paxar has launched a new solution, the NVE-2-EPC Starter Kit to enablesuppliers of the German Metro Corporation (Metro) effective RFID pallet labelling. Metro AGis demanding that many of its suppliers label their pallets with RFID technology. The Paxarunit is entirely mobile and can be incorporated in existing process chains precisely whereRFID labels are needed.

A radio scanner reads the serial shipping container code and transmits it over a distanceof up to 30 meters to the base station in the cart. The software then generates an EPCnumber and a new label with visible information that the 9855 RFID printer prints. At thesame time, the printer also writes onto a Philips-U-Code EPC 1.19 RFID chip in the label.

26

So you believe that UWB comes in one oftwo versions - either the MBOA’s MB-OFDMor the UWB Forum’s DS-UWB. Think again. Inaddition to all sorts of what companiesoperating under the UWB umbrella call‘enhancements’ to the technology and wecall proprietary changes, there is anotherversion which is significantly different.

Mentioned in our main article as a maverick,Carlsbad, California-based Pulse-Link isploughing its own UWB furrow. Incisor spoke tochief operating officer Bruce Watkins. We hadspent considerable time researching Pulse-Link,trying to find out what it is offering, and how itstechnology differs. Look at the Pulse-Link website and read its press releases and it isimpossible to ascertain what type of UWB it isusing. According to Watkins this is entirelydeliberate. What we did find out is that Pulse-Link is as interested in UWB over wired links asit is wireless.

The company is promoting its ability to useUWB to transfer data at high data rates. Pulse-Link's UWB over-wire technology for coax cableprovides up to 1.2 Gigabits downstream and upto 480 Megabits upstream of additionalbandwidth, at low cost, on differing CATVarchitectures. Pulse-Link says it is the firstcompany in the world to demonstrate UWB overwired media. During our interview, Watkinssuggested that it’s actual over-the-air data rateis at present 1.3 Gigabits per second, with thedata throughput presently at 667Mbps, addingthat over the next thirty to sixty days,optimisation will bring the throughput to Gigabitdata rates.

Instead of divulging Pulse-Link’s technicaldisposition, Watkins preferred instead to explainthat his company’s work with UWB had linksgoing way back to the 1960’s, when HenningHarmuss, who worked with Pulse-Link CTO

John Santhoff, was one of two people – theother being Dr Gerald Ross – who first starteddescribing UWB. Santhoff went on to work onUWB while working for the US Air Force. ‘So wereally know UWB, and know that it will work,’said Watkins. When pushed, Watkins did tell usthat Pulse-Link’s solution was nearer to DS-UWB than MB-OFDM. ‘DS-UWB is more‘traditional’ UWB, like us. The main difference isin receiver architecture and forward errorcorrection. Our signal modulation is alsodifferent.’

Apparently, one of the explanations for Pulse-Link’s left of centre secrecy is that the companystill focuses on government securityapplications for UWB. “If the governmentsecurity market is an important part of yourbusiness, there is an advantage to the rest of theworld not knowing how you do things,’ saidWatkins, continuing ‘Even before the MBOA/DS-UWB debate started, there were 25 differentproposals put forward to the IEEE to establishthe standard. For both of these reasons, wedon’t reveal our technology, and are notpromoting it to the IEEE as a basis for the

standard.’ Though he also acknowledged thatPulse-Link was now in dialogue with the IEEE.

It seems that Pulse-Link will continue toconcentrate mainly on achieving high data ratesover long distances. Watkins was sceptical ofsome of the claims that are being made. ‘For allof the talk of 480mbps demos, most of whatwas shown at CES this month was achieving30-100Mbps at best. Achieving high data ratesis not as simple as they (the MBOA and DS-UWBprotagonists) say, and it will take time’ hecommented. Pulse-Link publishes the tablebelow which includes its own data rate targets.

Is Pulse-Link an UWB player and a force to bereckoned with? It’s hard to say, today. Watkinstold Incisor that Pulse-Link would ship developerkits with 1-gigabit capability within 30-60 days.Inevitably, and as with all of these companies, itwill be a case of seeing whether Pulse-Linkdelivers on its promises.

UWB – what is your flavour of choice?

Is it MBOA? Is it DS-UWB? Or is it Pulse-Link?

ditRange 802.11b 802.11a 802.11g 802.15.3a Pulse~LINK(LOS*) (UWB)

3 Meters 11 Mbps 54 Mbps 54 Mbps 480 Mbps 1 to 1.3 Gbps

10 Meters 11 Mbps 48 Mbps 48 Mbps 120 Mbps 333 Mbps

20 Meters 11 Mbps 24 Mbps 36 Mbps 0 88 Mbps

40 Meters 5.5 Mbps 12 Mbps 18 Mbps 0 14 Mbps

60 Meters 5.5 Mbps 6 Mbps 6 Mbps 0 5 Mbps

80 Meters 2 Mps 0 No Data 0 2 Mbps

Raw Data Rates: Line-of-Site

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

27

Fujitsu and StaccatoCommunications partner

New funding for WiQuest UWB development

Fujitsu Limited and Staccato Comm-unications, Inc. (profiled in this issue) haveannounced a partnership under which theywill provide all-CMOS, single-chip wirelessuniversal serial bus (USB) and ultra-wideband(UWB) solutions for the global marketplace.

The partnership’s CMOS single-chip wirelessUSB products are compliant with Multiband OFDMAlliance (MBOA) UWB specifications. Sampling ofthese chips from Fujitsu and StaccatoCommunications is scheduled for 2005, movingthe companies closer to volume production andcommercialisation, targeting the consumer PC,digital home appliance, and mobile phonemarkets.

"Integration is the key to competitive products.Having chosen Fujitsu's advanced process CMOStechnology from the outset, StaccatoCommunications is leading the industry withsingle-chip wireless USB solutions," said JojiMurakami, group senior vice president, LSI Groupof Fujitsu Limited. "Fujitsu aims to achieve further

integration of wireless USB functionality into ASICsystem-on-chips (SoC), utilizing its designcapabilities. By partnering with StaccatoCommunications, our goal is to provide customerswith optimal wireless USB/UWB technology-basedsolutions."

Fujitsu will offer its SoC/ASSP together withStaccato Communications' UWB products as part

of its next-generation wireless USB/UWBtechnology-based solutions to its customers,enabling them to develop products with wirelessUSB capabilities.

"Perhaps one of the best decisions we havemade at Staccato was our choice of Fujitsu'sprocess technology," said Roberto Aiello,Staccato’s founder and CTO. "For digital-centricdesigns like wireless USB, Fujitsu's processtechnologies and a rich set of libraries and IPshave tremendous advantages, and the real benefitis in how well Fujitsu's process technology andlibraries are optimized to handle high-speed RFcircuit designs embedded along with the digital."

Fujitsu Limited reported consolidated revenuesof 4.7 trillion yen (US$45 billion) for the fiscal yearended March 31, 2004. A fairly substantialcompany for Staccato to partner with, then, andthis must demonstrate a substantial vote ofconfidence in the Staccato’s Multiband OFDMUWB technology.

BBC television discusses CES UWB announcements withStaccato’s Robert Aiello

WiQuest Communications, which provideswireless communications semiconductorand systems technology, has closed a $13Mround of institutional financing, led by MenloVentures and Palomar Ventures. This newcapital will be used by WiQuest to hireadditional staff, expand wireless researchand development activities, and supportmarketing, interoperability testing, andproduction release of WiQuest’s advancedUWB products.

WiQuest is building complete solutions forUltrawideband applications, from mobilehandsets and portable gaming to audio/videosystems in the digital home, including wirelessmulti-media, PC connectivity, and simplified,lower cost home theatre installation.

“We were attracted to WiQuest for a number of

reasons, including a strong, proven wirelessteam, their focus on a highly differentiated,systems-oriented approach for multi-media,mobile, PC, and consumer electronicsapplications, and an excellent climate ofopportunity for their ultrawideband technology”said Pravin Vazirani of Menlo Ventures.

“Our vision for UWB leverages theunprecedented performance opportunity thatthe FCC and other worldwide bodies areenabling, and will allow consumers to finally ‘cutthe cord’ and enjoy the wireless benefits offreedom and flexibility.” said Matthew B.Shoemake, founder, CEO and president ofWiQuest.

Founded in September 2003, WiQuestCommunications’ team is comprised ofsemiconductor and system design veterans

from companies including AlantroCommunications, Nokia, Qualcomm, IBM, TexasInstruments, Gain Technology, Bay Networks,Sun Microsystems and others.

As an early contributing member of theMultiBand OFDM Alliance Special Interest Group(MBOA-SIG), WiQuest engineers have beenactively involved in the development of therecently released MBOA-SIG physical layer (PHY)as well as the media access control (MAC)specifications. WiQuest is also a member of theUSB Implementer’s Forum and is active in itsnascent wireless USB efforts.

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

28

Samsung lays out UWB roadmapAt CES, Samsung’s UWB demo scenario

showed the ability to control wirelessmultimedia streaming of high quality, highdata rate signals such as HD/SD A/V signals,and how UWB could provide easyconnectivity between mobile devices andhome appliances.

Samsung said that its ‘ceaseless activeparticipation on MBOA, WiMedia Alliance,WUSB and IEEE activities’ had enabled it to drawnear to having fully-fledged production ofvarious home-networking products. These willenable wireless video image transmitionbetween a DVD player and a digital TV, wirelessconnection between set-top boxes, HDTV andhome theater system and high-speed

connection between computers and digitalcamcorders.

Samsung’s MBOA compliant UWB Platform isimplemented on FPGA with data rates of25Mbps, 50Mbps and 100Mbps, which it saysare downscaled by half of 53.3Mbps,106.7Mbps and 200Mbps, respectively.

Samsung’s development line-up currentlyincludes:

• RF : One chip RFIC with 0.18micron CMOSstandard process

• Baseband Modem : Complete FPGA test withMBOA(Ver. 0.7) up to 200Mbps

• MAC : Complete FPGA test with IEEE802.15.3

This platform can transfer HD qualitymultimedia streaming of MPEG2- HD video datafrom a server PC to a client PC while each PCconnects to the UWB platform via an Ethernetport to send data.

Samsung expects to have a 130micronprocess RFIC + ModemIC operating at up to 200Mbps by Q2 2005, a 130micron process RFIC+ ModemIC + WUSB test bed operating at up to480 Mbps by Q4 2005 and a 90micron process1chip WUSB solution operating at up to 480Mbps by Q2 2006.

Coretronic develops Wireless USB forprojectors/display systems

Known as a leading Taiwanese provider ofprojection and display solutions, Coretronicwill work with Staccato Communications todevelop Wireless USB for projectors andrelated products.

Coretronic is a worldwide top three DLPprojector manufacturer and the leadingmanufacturer of LCD backlight modules inTaiwan, and claims its DLP projector and LCDbacklight module products have a 10 percentglobal market share respectively in 2003. The

company manufactures four major productlines, namely DLP projectors, LCD monitors/TV,LCD backlight modules, and video products (DLPrear projection display TVs and plasma displaypanel (PDP) TVs).

Coretronic will use Staccato Communication'srecently announced single-chip design for all ofthe RF and baseband components based on thenewly completed MBOA PHY specification.

"Staccato's technology offers a low-cost, all-CMOS implementation, which will help us build

products faster and better," said John Fu,Coretronic A.V.P., Wireless Media Product DesignCenter,. "We are a major supplier of innovativeprojection and display solutions, and we plan tomove aggressively to bring wireless USB tomarket in 2005."

AboCom to build wireless USBadapters and PC Express cards

Staccato Communications has announcedthat AboCom, a leading Taiwanese ODM/OEMof wireless mobile products will adoptStaccato's wireless USB silicon products asthe basis for wireless USB PC Express cardsand other PC adapter products.

The AboCom products will become available inthe second half of 2005 and will initially targetthe PC and peripheral markets.

"The small form factors and low cost enabledby Staccato's single-chip all-CMOS solutionsare critical elements in meeting therequirements for Express Cards and USBadapters," said Wen Tsay, CTO of Abocom."Abocom is a major supplier of wirelesstechnologies, WiFi and Bluetooth, for the PCmarketplace, and we are aggressively bringingWireless USB to market in 2005."

"Abocom has emerged as one of the mostcompetitive players in this market and ourmutual goals are well aligned Abocom will be akey customer and partner for Staccato to enablethe Wireless USB market" said Roberto Aiello,CEO of Staccato.

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

29

Wisair underpins UWB applications Wisair used Ultra-Wide Band (WUSB)

technology to demonstrate its own andvarious partners’ MBOA-based UWBapplications at CES. Leading up to the event,Wisair had showcased a new developmentkit - the DV9100 - demonstrating wirelessUSB, wireless video and other UWBapplications. The DV9100 is based onWisair’s two-chip solution.

Wisair demonstrated a number of UWBapplications at the MBOA pavilion (and thesecret squirrel items in a private meeting room!)including WUSB applications for seamlessconnectivity between a host PC and legacy USB2.0 devices such as remote hard disk, printer /scanner and high quality PC cameras, wirelessvideo applications streaming High Definitioncontent to high resolution flat displays andwireless media adapters using UWB to connecta home PC with the home entertainmentsystem, and also showed co-existence andimmunity to interference with other wirelesstechnologies such as 802.11a and cellulartelephones.

Companies demonstrating UWB-enabled

applications at CES based on Wisair technology,and using the DV9100 kit included:

• Asahi Glass Co. (AGC) showed a firstprototype of a UWB USB Dongle. The smallform fit dongle enables connectivity betweenPC's and multiple other UWB enabledperipherals.

• ASUS demo’d UWB WUSB connectivity,sharing video, audio and graphic content through the ASUS S-pressoentertainment PC

• D-Link was showing UWB connectivitybetween a wireless media player and anEntertainment System using a D-LinkWireless Media adaptor

• Intel demonstrated a Wireless USB PC hostsolution enabling UWB based connectivity toPC peripherals and other consumerelectronic devices.

• NEC Electronics' wireless USB Device WireAdapter (DWA) prototype was combined withWisair's UWB module as part of Intel WUSBdemonstration.

• TI demonstrated Wireless USB applicationbased on its own Wireless USB controllerand the Wisair DV9100 development kit

Wisair itself demonstrated an HP All-in-Onesolution on which Hewlett Packard and Wisairhad collaborated and agreed to demonstrate atCES, and also said that two large Japaneseconsumer electronic brands were using Wisairtechnology to demonstrate Wireless Videostreaming application

Staccato demos industry firstcomplete single chip all-CMOS

MBOA UWB chipDuring December, Staccato announced that

it had demonstrated to select customers thefirst version of it’s single-chip design for allmajor components of the RF and basebandspecified by the newly completed MBOA PHYspecification.

This single-chip design is the latest in a seriesof all-CMOS test chips built by Staccato over thepast 18 months but is the first to include allmajor components specified by the newlyfinalized MBOA specification.

The chips have demonstrated the ability totransmit at the highest specified data rate of upto 480 Mbps. The all-CMOS implementationclears the path for low-cost, highly integratedsilicon solutions for wireless USB and other UWB

applications by taking advantage of mainstreamgeneric CMOS foundry processes.

“In terms of what it means for consumers, thisachievement is significant,” said JoycePutscher, director and WPAN principal analystfor In-Stat/MDR. “Those familiar with the historyof the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi markets can bearwitness to the fact that all-CMOS solutionsenable these technologies to be integrated intoend products more quickly due to theirsignificant price advantage. This can translate toearly market share capture.”

“We are pleased by the results we have seenin the series of MBOA UWB test chips we havebuilt so far,” said Roberto Aiello, president andCEO, Staccato Communications. “We are now

comfortable moving to production samples ofthe single-chip PHY for our customers as thenext step and then quickly integrating the MACand wireless USB functionality for a completesingle-chip wireless USB chip in 2005.”

Staccato’s single-chip PHY products areexpected to sample in early 2005 with rampingproduction later in the year. Complete single-chip wireless USB silicon will sample in late2005. Staccato will make both productsavailable with complementary development kitsto its key customers.

DV9100 development kit

UWB in 2005 - Incisor special focus

Wireless industry intelligence - ZigBee

30

ZigBee Alliance finalizes specification Incisor today covers a wide range of short-

range RF technologies. The industries that arebased around them are driven by companies andgroups of companies forming special interestgroups, forums and alliances. Its possible togeneralise about them – some are extremelyprofessional and tightly run, some more ‘looselybound’. Some are ‘noisy’ and some are quiet. TheZigBee Alliance is one of the latter – a ‘quiet’organisation which just seems to get on with thejob in hand.

During December the Zigbee Alliance announcedthat it had ratified the first ZigBee specification. In afollow up phone call, Alliance chairman Bob Heile toldIncisor that this on-time delivery of the specificationis the culmination of two years of worldwidedevelopment and interoperability testing by the morethan 100 member companies of the ZigBee Alliance.‘Back in summer 2003 we sat down and mapped outa detailed programme that created a milestone –finalising the spec by the end of 2004. We are all verypleased to have hit that target’ said Heile. Isn’t thisunusual, as many other wireless specs seem to suffermany complications along the way? Not the ZigBeeAlliance, according to Heile: “We stayed prettyfocussed, and didn’t allow ourselves to get boggeddown. There are six working groups and 12-20companies represented in each working group, but ifthere are ever issues, we have a board of directorswhich makes decisions and resolves disputes.’

For those members that have already announcedZigBee-ready technology, Heile said that the

ratification of the specification enables them toquickly enhance their products and begin testing toobtain ZigBee-compliant certification. All Alliancemembers have complete and exclusive access to thefinal specification and will continue to participate inongoing interoperability testing to verify that theirproducts are ZigBee compliant.

Now that the ZigBee specification has been ratified,the Alliance will continue to validate the specificationthrough expanded interoperability and scalabilitytests and future enhancements. The Alliance plans toactively promote the use of ZigBee-enabledtechnology in real-world applications to foster new,creative applications for the market, as well as tofacilitate the broad market adoption of the ZigBee

standard around the world. ‘We want to createinnovation in the market,’ said Heile, continuing‘Some members want to add proprietary features forcertain specific applications. The Alliance will monitorthis and will adopt the best.’

One thing the Alliance is not doing is getting hungup over the need for the complete spec to beendorsed by the IEEE – a quagmire as others havedemonstrated. Heile explained the Alliance’s position:‘With 802.15.4 we already have the main part of ourspec standardised. The rest will become a de factostandard. We have helped facilitate this by creating inthe ZigBee Alliance what is a very standards-basedorganisation.’

Incisor asked Heile what the next milestones were?‘We’re now working to complete the test andconformance methodology, and plan that this shouldbe done by the end of this quarter (Q1 – calendarquarter, that is - 2005). Then, given the number ofZigBee-ready products announced in 2004, weanticipate seeing ZigBee-compliant finished productsas soon as Q2 2005.”

Chipcon launches CC2430 ZigBeeSystem-On-Chip solution

Norwegian RF chip company Chipcon AS hasrevealed launch plans for what it describes as theindustry’s first true single-chip IEEE 802.15.4 andZigBee-solution, one year after the launch ofChipcon’s CC2420 (claimed to be the industry’sfirst IEEE 802.15.4-compliant and ZigBee-readyRF Transceiver). Chipcon’s CC2430 combines thefeatures of the CC2420 with an 8051 MCU,128kByte of FLASH memory and 8kByte of RAM.

The CC2430 is targeted at a wide range ofapplications, including building automation, industrialmonitoring and control systems, and wireless

sensor networks. The new device will enable OEMs todevelop wireless network products using the CC2430as the only active device in the system. “We haveseen a tremendous interest for the CC2420 in themarket says John Helge Fjellheim, VP of WorldwideSales. According to Fjellheim, the CC2430 can also beused as a general 2.4 GHz direct sequence spreadspectrum device for a number of proprietary solutionsnot using IEEE 802.15.4 or ZigBee.

The CC2430 is based on Chipcon’s SmartRF 03technology in 0.18 µm CMOS. It will be available in a7x7 mm QLP 48 package. Development kits and

samples are targeted to be available in Q2 2005.Chipcon says that in million quantities, the pricing forthe device will be USD 4.00 - or lower. “The ZigBeeAlliance has set the long-term target for the BOM fora ZigBee solution to be USD 3.00. Being able to offerthe CC2430 as the first- generation All-In-Onesolution for USD 4 - both efficiently shows that theZigBee Alliance’s long-term cost target is withinscope as well as showing Chipcon’s commitment tomake the ZigBee standard successful” summarizedFjellheim.

Bob Heile, chairman, ZigBee Alliance

See next month’s issue for Incisor’s ZigBeefocus, where we will look at developments in theworld of ZigBee technology, will profile some ofthe leading companies, and look at some of themost interesting applications for this low-power, low cost wireless networking technology.To ensure your company is included, contactVince Holton now. Email: vholton@click.co.uk

Wireless industry intelligence - NFC

31

Philips joins Taiwan's Proximity Mobile Transaction

Service AllianceRoyal Philips Electronics’ Semiconductors

division has joined Taiwan's ProximityMobile Transaction Service Alliance, aninitiative of the Committee ofCommunication Industry Developmentwithin the Ministry of Economics Affairs,ROC. The objective of the alliance is topromote contactless communication andmobile e-payment services by integratingthe products and services of industrymembers such as chip/electronicsmanufacturers, transportation providers,financial institutions and telecom servicesvendors.

The alliance will include companies such asAcer, BenQ, Chung-Hwa Telecom, Far EastToneTelecommunication, Taiwan Cellular Corp., AsiaPacific Broadband Wireless CommunicationsInc., VIBO Telecom Inc., MasterCardInternational, Visa International and Philips.Taipei Smart Card Co. (TSCC) will be acting asproject managers to implement the contactlessinfrastructure in Taiwan.

Philips supports the alliance based on itsactivity in Near Field Communication (NFC)technology for contactless transactions, whichcombines the functions of a contactless reader,

a contactless card and peer-to-peerfunctionality on a single chip.

Beyond developing a contactless mobiletransaction business model, the first practicalstep will include using NFC-enabled mobilehandsets on the public transportation system inTaipei. The project will work on the existingMIFARE-based infrastructure. MIFARE is theindustry standard for contactless and dualinterface smart card and reader technologyoperating at 13.56Mhz, which uses the EasyCard issued by TSCC. Simultaneously, thealliance will work to implement an NFCcontactless interface in the retail and bankingenvironments.

Many different technologies and fields ofexpertise need to be integrated to create acomplete mobile business service application.Industry-leading firms within the alliance areproviding their technologies and expertise,ranging from core NFC technology,semiconductor system and sub-systemmodules, through the development of NFC-enabled mobile phones and devices. They willalso develop mobile telephone serviceproviders' value added services including e-Wallet, mobile payments and point of sale

infrastructure and a software stack supporting amobile transaction platform together with userinterfaces."As a major provider of mobiletransaction applications in Taiwan, Philips ishonored to become a member of the alliance.The biggest technology challenge for mobilebusiness transactions is to ensure the integrityand security of data transmission," said MarconiJiang, general manager for PhilipsSemiconductors Taiwan. "In the near future,consumers will be able to use public transport,visit a cinema or a concert or go shopping justby using an NFC-enabled mobile phone or PDA.This is the ultimate convenience for theconnected consumer."

Wireless industry intelligence - RFID

European RFID Centre supported by Cisco

Networking giant Cisco Systems will jointhe European RFID Centre to collaborate withEuropean businesses in developing theirRFID strategies. The RFID Centre, whichofficially opened on January 25th 2005,provides a showcase of RFID applications forEuropean business delivering value throughlive demonstrations, educational services,networking events, and impartial advice.

The RFID Centre is based in Bracknell,England, close to Heathrow airport. The Centre isbacked by a range of technology partners

including Microsoft, Intel and Cable & Wirelessand has government support from the UK'sDepartment of Trade and Industry.

"2004 was hailed as the year of the RFID pilotbut many of these to date have been smallscale, lacked the complexity of involvingmultiple stakeholders and have mainly focusedon in-store applications. Cisco believes that inorder to develop understanding, accurately

continued

Wireless industry intelligence - RFID continued

32

measure and create a long-term RFID strategy,it is essential to use a converged IP networkwhich is scalable to accommodate futurecomplexity and volume of traffic, said KaanTerzioglu, Managing Director, TechnologyMarketing Organisation, Cisco Systems EMEA."RFID is the ultimate networked data applicationand its success and speed of deployment willdepend on a scalable intelligent networkarchitecture."

"The RFID Centre is a permanent, independentvenue for exhibiting and demonstrating a widerange of RFID related technologies and crosssector applications to help potential usersidentify opportunities and select solutions" saidEd Cowley, Director of the RFID Centre. "It will

also act as a hub to link together all interestedparties from government, academia, industrybodies, business and supplier communities tohelp spread best practice with regard tosuccessful implementions. It will focus onoperational, technical and business issues.We're not a standards body, but we can help byinterpreting and explaining to the businesscommunity the likely business impact oftechnical standards."

Cisco will be supplying the wired and wirelessnetwork infrastructure to the RFID centre, whichRFID applications and devices can run over. Thecentre will also house six Cisco demonstrationpods which will showcase RFID specific uses ofthe Cisco RFID Ready Network with partners.

New routing solutions with embedded servicesand applications, such as the IntegratedServices Router (ISR), launched in September2004, will be included as they evolve in thedevelopment of the Intelligent InformationNetwork 3-5 year strategy.

More bandwidth for RFIDThe 46 national communications

authorities in Europe have voted to adoptnew regulations developed by EuropeanTelecommunications Standards Institute(ETSI), which will allow RFID readers to usemore power and operate in a wider UHFband. This was hailed as good news for end-users in Europe that are looking toimplement new supply chain solutions.

The new regulations, dubbed ETSI 302-208,will allow European RFID readers operating inthe UHF band to perform nearly as well as UHFreaders operating under Federal CommunicationCommission rules in the United States. But someEuropean retailers will not switch to readersoperating under the new rules immediately

because they are not sure how long it will takefor vendors to begin mass-producing suchreaders and because of concerns about howfast tags and readers can exchange data underthe new regulations.

ETSI 302-208 provides an additional frequencyrange from 865 to 868 MHz in which RFIDreaders can operate (currently they operatebetween 869.4 and 869.65 MHz), increasing thespectrum band from 250 kHz to 3 MHz. Thenumber of channels readers can broadcast onhas been increased from one to 15. The newband is divided into three sub-bands. Under theold regulations, UFF readers were restricted tohalf a watt of effective radiated power (ERP). Thenew regulations allow them to emit up to 2

watts ERP between 865.6 and 867.6 MHz; 0.5watts ERP between 867.6 and 868 MHz; and 0.1watts ERP between 865 and 865.5 MHz

Wireless industry intelligence - WLAN/WiFi

IEEE aids selection and deploymentof WLAN equipment

Anyone who sets up a wireless local areanetwork (WLAN) faces the challenge ofchoosing equipment for access points andthe client adapters in personal computers,PDAs and other devices. In order to makethis task easier, the IEEE has started work ona test and measurement standard for thecomponents in IEEE 802.11 WLANs.

The standard project, IEEE P802.11.2,"Recommended Practice for the Evaluation ofIEEE 802.11 Wireless Performance," will giveusers the metrics, measurement methods andtest conditions they need to evaluate how WLANequipment functions and performs. The projectwill be the focus of IEEE 802.11 Task Group t. Itwill serve many constituencies including

developers of IEEE 802.11-related chipsets,components, systems and software, as well assystem installers, information technologymanagers and testing laboratories.

"I expect this recommended practice to be ofhigh value to the industry given the complexityof IEEE 802.11 protocols and the intrinsicstochastic nature of electromagnetic wave

continued

Wireless industry intelligence - WLAN/WiFi continued

33

propagation," says Paul Nikolich, Chair of theIEEE 802 Committee. "It will create the basis forWLAN test plans that accurately characterizeand compare IEEE 802.11 WLAN devices for usein the dynamic wireless environment. Our initialfocus is likely to be on parameters such asdevice throughput, roaming time and rate-versus-range."

IEEE P802.11.2 builds on the test foundationestablished for wired Ethernet networks, butinvolves many more metrics since it mustaddress interference from other wirelesssources and how to test devices in motion. Bothinterference and mobility make repeatablemeasurement more difficult.

"The objective of this new standarddevelopment project will be to foster the growthof wireless LANs beyond their success in smallnetworks," says Charles Wright of AzimuthSystems and Chair of the IEEE 802.11 TaskGroup t. "Small office/home office users oftensee cost as central. Those in the enterprisemarket also consider network performance andproductivity as primary. IEEE P802.11.2 willsupport large organizations as they adopt

WLANs by helping them predict performance inlarge deployments without extensivemeasurement.

"It will give those who deploy wirelessnetworks a uniform set of planning benchmarks

based on device characteristics, network layoutand usage parameters. Our overall goal is toimprove WLAN reliability and lower costs."

WiFi for broadband wirelessoperators

Cambridge Broadband and GemtekSystems are working together to enablebroadband wireless operators to add carrier-grade WiFi to their service portfolio. The twocompanies have signed a commercial andtechnical collaborative agreement tointegrate Gemtek Systems’ WiFi technologywith Cambridge Broadband’s industry-leading VectaStar fixed wireless accesstechnology.

Cambridge Broadband will integrate GemtekSystems’ WiFi technology into VectaStar’ssubscriber unit, creating a hot-spot-in-a-boxwith integrated backhaul to allow residential andmobile users to be served cost-effectively. Thecombination of Gemtek Systems’ andCambridge Broadband’s per-user QoSmechanisms is said to facilitate a range oftariffing options for data services and highquality voice-over-WiFi.

Cambridge Broadband’s platform is capable ofdelivering IP, VoIP, Ethernet, and E1 /T1. Thismulti-service capability is further expanded by

the addition of Gemtek Systems’ carrier-gradeWiFi access.

Commenting on the signing, Colin Abrey, VP,Business Development at Cambridge Broadbandsaid, “As the telecommunication market is

fiercely competitive today, service differentiationis paramount in attracting new subscribers. WithVectaStar’s ability to offer ATM or IP, operatorscan deploy Gemtek Systems’ integrated WiFitechnology as part of a larger service portfolio”.

Delivery of the new WiFi enabled CPEs willcommence in the first quarter of 2005 and willbe available for existing VectaStar customers ornew entrants wishing to offer WiFi services.

Wireless industry intelligence - WLAN/WiFi continued

34

Changes to 5GHz 802.11 standard

ADP Télécom spreads its wingsbeyond airport WLAN services

One reason for the relatively slow uptake of5GHz 802.11a Wi-Fi, compared to its 2.4GHzcousin 802.11g, has been the complexity oflicensing regulations affecting the 5GHz band- also an issue for WiMAX in the unlicensedspectrum. Two extensions to the 802.11standard are easing the situation and shouldboost the adoption of the 'a' variant.

First, and with the opening of new wirelessbands for indoor, outdoor, and mobile use inJapan, the IEEE has approved an amendment toIEEE 802.11 to support the new spectrum andtheir designated applications. The amendment,IEEE 802.11j, will enable WLAN vendors to offerwireless products that adapt to new frequencies,different channel widths, and operatingparameters.

"With existing spectrum used by more and moreproducts, IEEE 802.11j was developed by leadinginternational experts to allow WLAN products to

take advantage of new frequencies and operatingmodes," said Stuart J. Kerry, Chair of the IEEE802.11 standards committee. IEEE 802.11j,"Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) andPhysical Layer (PHY) Specifications: 4.9 --5 GHzOperation in Japan," takes advantage ofspectrum and technology that has emerged sincethe original IEEE 802.11 standard was written in1997. In August 2002, the Japanese Governmentpublished new rules to use 4.9 and 5 GHz bandsin hot spot (indoor), fixed (outdoor), and nomadic(mobile) modes using Wireless LAN technology.IEEE 802.11j amends IEEE 802.11 to deliver astandard method of supporting these capabilitieswith new technologies such as the ability tochange channel widths and dynamically modifyradio capabilities.

"We wrote this amendment to enable IEEE802.11 to scale to new regulatory requirementsand uses envisioned by carriers, manufacturers,

and end users around the world," said Sheung Li,Chair of the IEEE 802.11j Task Group.

The amendment is targeted to the new Japanrules, and allows IEEE 802.11 networks tocommunicate and move to any new frequency,change the spectrum footprint to improveperformance or user capacity, and communicatenew rules and operating parameters to supportboth indoor and outdoor modes. Depending on themanufacturer, IEEE 802.11 products may beupgraded to use IEEE 802.11j features to takeadvantage of these new capabilities.

Another important Wi-Fi extension, 802.11h, isalready in place to comply with Europeanregulations regarding 5GHz and, in particular, toprevent Wi-Fi devices interfering with theincumbent users of the band, military and otherradar. This will become mandatory in Europe andthe US at the start of next year and a rush of newproducts is likely to appear soon.

Today it's not just aircraft that are takingoff from airports around the world. Estatesmanagement, terminal design and retailoperations are just some of the areas thathave yielded success and profits for theworld's top airport operators.

But the French company Aéroports de Paris(ADP) has added a more unusual service to itsportfolio: telecommunications. The firm,through its wholly owned subsidiary ADPTélécom, has carved out a valuable niche foritself providing telecommunications (andparticularly wireless) services - and not just inairports.

The company was originally set up to managethe telecommunications infrastructure acrossADP, which runs 14 airports and aerodromes inthe Paris region, including the country's biggestair hub, Roissy Charles de Gaulle.

In the last year and a half, however, it hasapplied the experience gained from introducingCisco-based Wireless LANs (WLANs) acrossairport terminals to other areas that JeromeCastaing, ADP Télécom's director of

Development, describes as "large and complexsites with people in transit."

This experience has allowed ADP Télécom to

become a major provider of wireless andtelecommunications services to owners of thesesites, which include airports, business hotels,conference centers and exhibition spaces.Earlier this year, for example, ADP Télécom wona contract to provide WLAN and othertelecommunications services for the Paris Expo-Porte de Versailles, the second-largestconvention centre in Europe.

The Paris Expo win also capped a run of dealsto manage wireless networks for a range ofclients including Alliance Hospitality, which ownsthe Holiday Inn hotel chain, and the 1,000-roomConcorde La Fayette on Paris' Champs-Elysées.

Castaing says the Paris Expo deal was awatershed in really breaking ADP Télécom intonon-airport services. These now account for asignificant amount of revenues to the businessand have led to the creation of a specialist unitwithin the company.

Incisor directory

35

Incisor directory of wireless industry companies

Access point/gateway productsBLIP Systems Clipcomm Inc.Commil Ltdlesswire AGInventel �

Pico CommunicationsRed-MTadlysWireless Networks Inc.

AntennasFractusGigaAnt

Cellular handsetsMitsubishi Electric Telecom EuropeMotorolaNokiaPanasonicPhilipsSony Ericsson

Communications ConsultingAlpine CommunicationsPA Consulting Group

Connectivity/Hardware products

3ComAnycom, Inc.Brain Boxes Ltd �

Ensure TechnologiesLogitechMediaSolv.comRoving Networks Socket CommunicationsTactel ABTDK Systems

Troy GroupXircom

Digital pen and paper technology

Anoto

Hardware and softwaredesign/IP

Adamya TechnologiesARC Wireless Solutions Inc.Atinav Inc.CEVA Inc.Colligo Networks Inc.Cosmic Co LtdDsIT Technologies LtdEricsson Technology Licensing

Company �

ImpulsesoftIVT CorporationLinTech GmbHMecel ABMindTree ConsultingNewLogic TechnologiesPenell A/SRTX TelecomStollmann E+V GmbHTality CorporationTelecaTTPCom Ltd.WaveLab Engineering AG

HeadsetsGN NetcomPlantronicsSouthWing

Industrial productsBaracoda

BlueGiga TechnologiesConnectBlue AB

Market research & analysisARC GroupBaskerville �

Chorleywood ConsultingEMCIMS Research

Mobile Computing productsCasioFujitsu Siemens ComputersIBMPalmSamsung ElectronicsSony Information Technology

EuropeToshiba Information Systems

OEM solutionsSMART Modular

Technologies �

Silicon/SemiconductorsAlcatel MicroelectronicsAtmel CorporationBrightcom Technologies, Inc.Conexant Systems, Inc.Cambridge Silicon

Radio (CSR) �

Infineon TechnologiesIntel CorporationKC Technology IncNational Semiconductor GmbHPhilips Semiconductors �

RF Micro DevicesSiGe SemiconductorSilicon & Software SolutionsSpirea

STMicroelectronicsTexas Instruments, Inc.XEMICS SAZeevo, Inc.

Software solutions &applicationsAtinav Inc.BandspeedMezoe �

Microsage WirelessNorwood SystemsOpen InterfaceRegiSoftRococo SoftwareSofBlue Inc.WIDCOMM �

Zi Corporation

Test EquipmentAnritsuBerkeley Varitronics SystemsCatalyst EnterprisesCETECOM Spain �

FrontlineIAR SystemsTektronix, Inc.Tescom Co Ltd

Test houses7 layers �

CETECOM Inc. �

EricssonETS DR.GENZ GmbHIntertek ETL SEMKO �

Radio Frequency Investigation (RFI) �

TM

company by clicking on the icon. This provides a link to an expanded profile ofthat company.

Incisor continues to be the only continuously published magazine dedicatedto Bluetooth and short range RF technology, and is received at more than 1300companies across the world, and enjoyed by an estimated readership of25,000 individuals. To add your company or a profile for your company to thisdirectory listing, email: directorylisting@click.co.uk

As time goes on, more and more companies join the wireless industry,becoming part of the global network of companies that are working to takewireless technology to market.

On an ongoing basis, Incisor includes a listing of companies providingproducts and services within the short range RF sector. Beyond the simplelisting, wherever there is an open book icon (�) alongside the company name,you will be able to obtain more information and contact details for that

Wireless industry calendar of events

36

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CONTACT DETAILS:

Publisher/Editor-in-chief: Vince Holton · vholton@click.co.uk · Telephone: +44 (0)1730 895614

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The Incisor is produced as an independent publication by Click I.T. Ltd. Views expressed within are those of the Incisor editoral and management representatives.

This newsletter is distributed on a monthly basis to companies and individuals with an interest in Bluetooth, WLAN, ZigBee, UWB, RFID, NFC and other RF technologies.

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Further wireless industry events will be added to the calendar as soon as they are announced. See notes below regarding editorial submissions.

DATE EVENT LOCATION NOTES LINK

February 6 - 10 2005 ISSCC 2005 San Francisco - http://www.isscc.org/isscc/ Marriott Hotel, San Francisco, CA

February 13 - 18 2005 Bluetooth UnPlugFest 20 Vancouver, Canada - www.bluetooth.org/foundry/sitecontent/ document/unplugfest_main

March 14 - 16 2005 CTIA Wireless 2005 Ernest N. Morial Represents all technologies http://www.ctiawireless.com/ Convention Center, and platforms and tells the complete New Orleans, USA story of wireless

April 11 - 14 2005 Bluetooth SIG All Hands Lisbon, Portugal - www.bluetooth.org/foundry/sitecontent/ Meeting document/unplugfest_main

May 24 - 25 2005 Wireless Connectivity World ExCel, London, UK - www.wiconworld.com

July 11 - 13 2005 m-Business 2005 Sydney, Australia The Fourth International Conference http://www.mbusiness2005.org on Mobile Business (IEEE sponsored)

Now access Incisor and other products andservices from Click I.T. Ltd at