WirelessHD too thirsty for mobiles

WirelessHD, the 4Gbit/sec radio link adopted TV makers to transmit high-definition video streams across living rooms, will not be ready for mobile use for at least three four years, according to a Panasonic engineer.

Toshiba, Sony and Panasonic were among companies at the IFA consumer electronics show using the technology implanted in TVs and DVD players, eliminating the need for trailing wires across room. This was one of the tasks proposed for ultrawideband (UWB) links, but that technology has been slow coming to market.

WirelessHD has the advantage that it uses frequencies at 60GHz that do not pass through walls, and so do not have neighbours fighting for airspace. They are also way beyond the crowded 2.4GHz band used by Wifi and Bluetooth, not to mention microwave ovens.

Toshio Sakimura, staff engineer at Panasonic’s AVC networks development centre, said WirelessHD is currently too power hungry for use by untethered devices. “The power will come down with LSI [large scale integration – ie packing the technology into smaller chips] but that will not happen for three or four years.”

He did not believe that WirelessHD will supersede UWB.”They will follow parallel paths. UWB has some advantages. It uses less power and it is omnidirectional. WirelessHD is directional.”

Manufacturers have got round this by using more than one antenna, as do 11n routers. This allows a signal to find a path even if someone walks across the beam. WirelessHD modules at IFA were large compared with, say, Bluetooth modules – see our Test Bed blog.