Millimeter-Wave Communication Chips

Hitachi plans to use millimeter-wave communication to transfer high-definition (HD) video streams between AV equipment, such as wall-screen TVs and Blu-ray Disc recorders. Millimeter-wave communication will enable 1 gigabits per second and faster wireless communication. Hitachi, Toshiba and Panasonic are introducing their millimeter wave products in the second half of 2010. Sony appears to be releasing millimeter wave products earlier.

Millimeter-wave communication at 1Gbit/s makes it possible to download a 640MB CD in only about 5s, or a 2-hour standard-definition (SD) quality video in about 9s.

Sony Corporation (‘Sony’) today announced the development of millimeter-wave wireless intra-connection technology that realizes high speed wireless data transfer inside electronic products such as television sets.

This new wireless intra-connection system is based on millimeter-wave wireless data transfer technology. Millimeter-wave refers to electromagnetic waves with a frequency of 30GHz to 300GHz, and wavelength between 1mm to 10mm. With their high frequency, millimeter-waves are suited to ultra high speed data transfer, while a further advantage is their ability to transfer data using only very small antennas. The high frequency technologies used in this system also draw on Sony’s extensive expertise and years of experience in the field of wireless communications and broadcast products. Specifically, Sony has integrated highly energy efficient millimeter-wave circuits on 40nm-CMOS-LSIs (with an active footprint of just 0.13 square mm including both the transmitter and receiver), to realize high speed, 11Gbps data transfer over a distance of 14mm using antennas approximately 1mm in size.