Alereon to Release Wireless USB Chip
Chip designer Alereon Inc. said Monday it is releasing the first chip that uses a frequency band that is legal all over the world for wireless USB, a technology with the potential to cut the tangle of cables surrounding computers.
The new chip could prove an important step in persuading computer makers to incorporate the technology.
A few wireless USB products are already on the U.S. market, but they send and receive signals over a frequency that isn’t legal in most of the world because of potential interference with radar.
USB, or Universal Serial Bus, cables connect computers to mice, keyboards, printers, cameras and external hard drives. Alereon spokesman Mike Krell believes the new chip, the AL5100, will show up in external hard drives and cameras this year. They’ll connect to computers with optional wireless add-in cards, or dongles that go into USB ports.
“Assuming that they do it right and it works, it’s going to be a pretty powerful technology for interconnecting devices,” said analyst Steve Wilson at ABI Research.
The underlying radio technology is called ultra-wideband, or UWB, and uses frequencies far above those usually employed for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular phones and other wireless technologies. It’s relatively virgin territory in the airwaves, and exploiting it promises high data transfer rates with low power consumption at the price of range — the signal hardly goes further than 30 feet.
Source: MSNBC.
0