One of the two groups pushing for IEEE standardisation of ultra wideband radio technology has turned instead to a European organisation after over two years of delay and debate.
The IEEE’s working party has been deadlocked for so long that selecting either the multiband version backed by the WiMedia Alliance, or the direct sequence technology preferred by Freescale among others, looks impossible.
Now Ecma, a European standards body for consumer electronics and ICT equipment, has chosen the WiMedia Alliance’s MAC layer for use in UWB kit.
“WiMedia’s move to Ecma is in many ways disappointing, although not surprising,” said Martin Rofheart, director of UWB Operations for Freescale. “IEEE-SA is a consensus organisation dedicated to attaining global worldwide standards. Ecma is an organisation aimed at assisting industry with standards, primarily in Europe.”
The move could eventually help drive the IEEE’s standardisation efforts to a conclusion, if the Ecma adoption helps to pave the way to creating an ISO standard which then leads back to the IEEE. That is the hope of Amir Freund, v-p marketing at WiMedia member Wisair.
“We are trying to stop any situation where there will be two standards,” Freund told EW. “That would make the market confused, reduce significantly the market size - for us it’s the worst situation.”
Extra complications have been introduced recently by a Japanese decision to mandate detect and avoid technology in the lower bands of the 3.1-10.6GHz spectral mask specified by the FCC in the US. The feature requires a deep notch to be introduced dynamically, and Europe is expected to specify a similar measure.
As a result Wisair’s 480Mbit/s Wireless USB hub reference design, debuted this week, is currently only compliant in the US. The same goes for products shown by US firm Staccato Communications.
“[The process] seems to have resolved itself towards a reasonable amount of avoidance that is do-able in our radio,” said Eric Rosser, Staccato’s v-p of sales.
“We’re just looking for the rules to harden before we actually aggressively implement it.” Both firms expect to have detect and avoid in chips sampling by the end of Q1 2006.