Ultra-wideband in doubt after Texas Instruments pulls out

by Peter Judge

May 9, 2008 —

Ultra-wideband, the fast short-range wireless link which was supposed to be
in handsets and PCs by now, is on the brink of failure after Texas
Instruments pulled out of the technology.

Chip giant TI has dropped out of the Wimedia
Alliance - the body behind UWB - and put its weight behind the 802.11n fast
Wi-Fi standard. It is following the Bluetooth SIG which shifted to 802.11n for
the fast version of its protocol, downgrading a UWB version which has yet to
be delivered.

"For now we think that 802.11n Wi-Fi gives us the right technology to
use until UWB becomes mature enough to put in a handset, and we are working
with the Bluetooth SIG to use Wi-Fi as a basis for the next Bluetooth,"
said Yoram Solomon, senior director, technology strategy and industry relations
at Texas Instruments, in the subscription Faultline newsletter from Rethink
Research - quoted at ARCchart.

"I've seen all the demonstrations and lab results that show that UWB can
deliver upwards of 480 Mbps, but that's not in a commercial product, and it
is especially not possible when its on the same 5mm x 5mm piece of silicon as
two other radios, and for a phone that's where it's got to work," said
Solomon, who said UWB was looking equally shaky in home networking as well as
in phones.

Despite being promised since at least 2003, UWB has never lived up to the hype,
says ARCchart's Matt Lewis: "[In 2003], ABI was predicting that UWB electronics
and chips would reach 45.1 million units by 2007, with industry revenue of $1.39
billion," said Matt Lewis of ARCchart. "Parks Associates reckoned
that UWB systems would exceed 150 million devices by the end of 2008. With the
benefit of hindsight, these estimates now look somewhat comical."

"The big question is whether chip prices will dip low enough for handsets
and accessories to be viable before the technology's window closes," said
Lewis. IMS Research
has put a deadline on that, he says - if it doesn't succeed this year, it's
had it.

"Wireless USB really has to succeed this year. The industry has been building
the hype, they've been saying since 2006, 'It's here, it's here, it's here',"
says IMS Research's Fiona Thomson in a report, The World Market for UWB. Chip
prices are apparently now at $10 which is too high for UWB to take off in volume;
if they can fall to $2, the market for UWB - in the form of Wireless USB - could
reach $1 billion by 2013, she says, however.

Wimedia Alliance confirmed that TI had pulled out of the group, and is understood
to be preparing another big marketing push for the technology. Some laptop makers
including Lenovo have offered Wireless USB based on UWB as an option in laptops
available in the US.

Techworld.com