2009 GSMA Mobile World Congress: Gauging the Market

Our international editor, Richard Mumford, attended Mobile World Congress last week. According to the official figures, the organisers claim more than 47,000 visitors (including delegates, exhibitors, contractors and media) from 189 countries attended the four-day conference and exhibition at the Fira de Barcelona from 16 to 19 February, which compares with 55,000 visitors in 2008. The number of exhibiting companies remained the same at 1,300.

The event has a longstanding reputation for being a dynamic showcase for the mobile industry, a hotspot for innovation and a springboard for new technologies, but was that still the case at a time when market confidence and perception are key factors? Richard's perception was that although the event may have lacked the flamboyance of previous years and that the mood was more subdued there was no denying the continued determination to innovate and benefit from a market where the potential to profit from the right product at the right time remains substantial.

To read his full review, visit our web site here.

ZigBee and Now RuBee!

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has approved RuBee®, a long-wavelength, packet-based, magnetic transceiver protocol, as a new international standard designated IEEE 1902.1. RuBee overcomes many of the problems seen with RFID and other wireless asset visibility solutions in harsh environments through its ability to work on steel and in liquids. RuBee tags and antennas are volumetric in harsh environments, not line-of-sight as is typically the case with other wireless technologies (and bar codes). RuBee tags work over a range of 1 to 50 feet depending on antenna configuration, and can be powered by a single coin-size lithium battery with battery life from 5 to 15 years. RuBee tags and systems can easily be combined with sensors, buttons, displays, and LEDs.

IEEE 1902.1 has been used to ensure the visibility and safety of government owned firearms, high valued evidence, military weapons, patient visibility and optimal patient flow in hospitals, hospital disposable and implantable inventories, livestock, disaster recovery equipment and safety systems, mission-critical tools, aircraft maintenance tools, and many other categories of highly valued goods and services. RuBee wireless asset visibility networks seem to be cost-competitive with other wireless networking solutions, including RFID so they could have a good future for these harsh environment applications.

GSMA Mobile World Congress Serves Up Latest Technology

You will get to digest fully what was on the menu at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week in my Wrap-up article that will be posted when the show comes to a close. For now though I can give you a tapas selection of the technology that has been whetting the appetites of the attendees this week.

To start, building on the past few years LTE is the key technology being discussed and although opinions vary as to the timescale for deployment it is a focus of activity and investment. The buzz though surrounds 4G TD-LTE, a time division duplex (TDD) version of LTE, which is the next evolution for TD-SCDMA. Although driven by the Chinese market this technology is envisaged as having global applications.

Femtocells came under the spotlight too in a special Femtozone featuring a programme highlighting research, business cases etc. If this tapas has given you food for thought, look out for my full report soon.

Richard Mumford (International Editor)

Verizon 4G LTE Service Coming Soon!

Speed, speed and more speed -that is what I want. Verizon has answered this demand by announcing it will begin testing 4G wireless service using LTE this year and launch it in at least 25 to 30 markets in the U.S. in 2010. This is based on their roll-out of EV-DO, assuming they will get to about the same level in the first year of deploying LTE. Verizon will continue to build out the 4G wireless network and expects to blanket the continental U.S. and Hawaii with the new wireless network by 2015.

The new network will use the 700 MHz wireless spectrum that Verizon acquired in the Federal Communications Commission's auction last year. The company announced in 2007 that it had planned to use LTE for this market which will be available after the US broadcasters finish transitioning to digital TV signals. Several GSM operators around the world have also announced plans to use LTE which means that Verizon 4G wireless subscribers might eventually be able to roam globally.

Verizon has been testing the service in several areas in the U.S. including Minneapolis, Columbus, Ohio, and northern New Jersey. It's also been working with Vodafone (their co-parent) and China Mobile to test deployments in other parts of the world, including Budapest, Hungary, Dusseldorf, Germany, and Madrid. In its initial trials, Verizon says it has demonstrated peak download speeds of around 50- 60 Mbps. But average download speeds are likely to be lower since the wireless spectrum is a shared. The network will certainly be much faster than the average speed of Verizon's 3G EV-DO service which typically gets up to 400-700 Kbps.

Moblie World Congress 2009 Kicks Off!

So what's hot this year at Mobile World Congress. It seems a little subdued because of the projections for handsets to decline by about 10% this year but there is always the next big thing coming down the road in technology. There seems to be a fair amount of green technology - mostly solar powered devices, etc. Android has picked up some support from a few applications providers and RFID/payment technologies are taking hold in handsets.

WiMAX was hot last year but this is the year of LTE (even as WiMAX is actually rolling out some implementations). With such a large installed base of infrastructure, LTE will come on strong even though WiMAX has a lead as far as timing is concerned. And Agilent came out strong at the show yesterday with some 9 or 10 news releases. Several of them surrounded LTE test solutions such as a complete end-to-end analysis and troubleshooting solution for LTE networks. The Signaling Analyzer Real Time (SART) for LTE provides comprehensive monitoring and network diagnostics by interpreting, correlating and analyzing protocol signaling messages produced by multiple network technologies at mobile network interfaces. They also announced the first LTE real-time signal generation and channel emulation solution for base station test, new commercial test products for TD-LTE: PC-based software for creating standards-based TD-LTE signals and vector signal analysis (VSA) software with TD-LTE modulation analysis capability plus a MIMO connectivity option and network conformance testing system for mobile WiMAX.

Agilent and Anite plc also announced they will demonstrate 3GPP LTE interoperability showing end-to-end streaming video with LTE UE devices from Signalion and Blue Wonder Communications plus Agilent will demonstrate LTE EVM, Tx power measurements and downlink transmit diversity for mobile device test using the E6620 wireless communications test set at Mobile World Congress so drop by to see them.

That is a large dose of test equipment! What have you seen at Mobile World Congress???

mmWave Scanners make the News

Doing a little business traveling this week and so I'm being treated to a copy of USA Today outside my hotel room door and I have to say it's nice to see microwave (in this case millimeter-wave) technology making the front page of a mainstream newspaper. The article in mention "Scanners replace detectors in tryout" refers to a new scanning technology being tested out by the Transportation Security Administration at the Tulsa International Airport.

An experimental program that begins today will test whether the $170,000 body scanners could replace $10,000 metal detectors that have screened airline passengers since 1973. The scanners should be capable of detecting non-metallic weapons such as plastic and liquid explosives, which the TSA considers a major threat. The scanners bounce harmless "millimeter waves" off passengers' bodies and use no radiation. The Journal had reported such technology several times over the past 2 years (see our cover story from October 2007 (A Radar-based Concealed Threat Detector) and our Executive Interview with Mark Hebeisen from Endwave Corp. (Endwave supplies the millimter-wave front-end that is part of the system from L3 Communications)


Airline passengers will skip metal detectors and instead be screened by body scanning machines that look through clothing for hidden weapons. Critics of the technology raise privacy concerns because the passenger's images reveal outlines of private body parts (these will be blurred for machine operators).Security analyst Bruce Schneier, a frequent critic of the TSA, said the scanners should improve security but warned that they take longer than metal detectors — 30 seconds vs. about 15 seconds per passenger. "There will be pressure to do the screening faster, which will be sloppier," Schneier said.


Airports in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, Albuquerque and Salt Lake City will join the test in the next two months, TSA spokesman Christopher White said. Hopefully, the trials will be a great succuss. I would love to be able to travel again without having to undress for security.

Stimulus Package Opens Grant Funding for Wireless Broadband

The final passing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill by Congress last week calls for over $6 billion in grants for the expansion of broadband areas across America. This funding will provide continued progress in the deployment and adoption of broadband technology that is vital to ensuring that the United States will remain competitive worldwide. As a platform capable of providing access everywhere, wireless broadband will be essential in bringing innovation and helping reach the Obama Administration’s goal of achieving universal broadband connectivity.

Commercial entities are clearly eligible for direct grants from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), go to http://www.ntia.doc.gov/. Commercial wireless hardware vendors and network providers stand ready to move forward with plans to bring wireless broadband to rural and underserved areas. Having direct access to grant funding will allow them to do so in a timely manner, helping create jobs fast, enable productivity, and should help jump-start our economy.

U of C, Berkeley Research Leads to Radio in Bug

Last month (January 28th), The University of California, Berkeley succeeded in controlling a live rhinoceros beetle by radio. A video of the experiment was previewed at the MEMS 2009 academic conference taking place in Sorrento, Italy. In the experiment, radio signals were sent to six electrodes attached to various locations of the beetles brain and muscles, thus allowing university researchers to control the movement of the beetle’s wings and some other parts. They equipped the beetle with a module incorporating a circuit to send signals to the electrodes, wireless circuit, microcontroller and battery. Controlling the movements of an insect is not a first for the university. This was the first time using a radio control system.



Rhinoceros beetles with a weight of up to 3g were used in this experiment because they can carry the controlling module (weighing about 1.3g) on their backs. And another reason is that they look cool, according to the university.

So what’s the point of this exercise? Considering that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding the research, military purposes are a likely contender. Commenting on this point, the university said that the technology can also be utilized for peaceful purposes. For instance, the radio-controlled beetle can be useful in places that are too narrow or dangerous for a human to enter and for many other purposes.

For that use, the university is planning to mount sensors including a camera on a beetle in the future. With the sensors, rhinoceros beetles will be able to work as surveillance robots in place of humans. As they can carry a weight of 3g, 1.7g of sensors, in addition to the 1.3g of the current module, can be mounted.

However, the ultimate goal of this research goes beyond just incorporating sensors. Beetles are already equipped with "sensors," such as their own eyes. In addition, they have a system to derive energy from food. So, the university is aiming to make the most of insects' own sensors while using their energy system as batteries.

I think we are on a slippery slope with this one. Attack of the Rhino Beetle? I might have trouble sleeping tonight.

EB Presents Wireless Device and Infrastructure Solutions

by MWJ European Editor, Richard Mumford

EB intends to demonstrate how it bends the limits of technology to design market-moving wireless device and infrastructure solutions to increase market competitiveness, revenue-potential and wireless portfolio.

In Hall 1, Stand 1F07 the company will reveal news for the highly-anticipated Mobile Internet Device (MID) market, as well as reference designs for integrated satellite-terrestrial communications. It will also demonstrate new infrastructure base station solutions for mobile WiMAX, including EB's next-generation radio channel emulator performing a live-replication of the mobile WiMAX environment.

COMSYS Mobile Demonstrates Multimode Data Handover

by MWJ European Editor, Richard Mumford

Comsys Communication & Signal Processing Ltd will be demonstrating multimode data handover between Mobile WiMAX and cellular networks as well as a customer commercial handset running the company’s Mobile WiMAX/EDGE solution in Hall 2, Stand B73. The multimode data handover between Mobile WiMAX and GSM-EDGE networks will demonstrate how service continuity is achieved over Comsys Mobile’s ComMAX™ CM1100 mobile WiMAX baseband processor in conjunction with any third-party legacy cellular baseband, or independently with the CM1125 WiMAX/EDGE processor, thus providing a multimode solution that enables the user to always be connected.

Comsys Mobile will also be showing commercial multimode devices supporting both mobile WiMAX and GSM-EDGE networks and visitors will be able to experience live demonstration of the CM1125 running in the ECS EliteGroup’s S370 Personal Internet Communicator.

“Our booth at Mobile World Congress will be a must-see attraction for industry stakeholders in the WiMAX community,” commented Ehud Reshef, director WiMAX product marketing at Comsys Mobile. “Visitors will be able to see a range of mobile WiMAX devices, supporting WiMAX and GSM/EDGE and incorporating Comsys Mobile’s unique baseband processors. Integrating them in customer devices highlights the maturity and uniqueness of our product offering, and demonstrates in an extremely tangible way the viability of WiMAX/EDGE service continuity.”

SA Predicts Rapid WiMAX Growth in Asia

Strategy Analytics said the predict that consumer WiMAX subscriptions in the developing countries of Asia will grow from a few thousand now to almost 27 million by 2013. Their research predicts that the strongest growth will come outside the major cities of Asia. Subscriptions in villages and small towns are forecast to grow at almost 300% per year, three times the rate of major cities. Government policies aimed at closing the rural-urban “digital divide” are one reason for this rapid growth, but historic lack of broadband alternatives is at least as strong a factor.

“Big cities are the obvious place to start,” says Tom Elliott, Director of EMCS and the report’s principal author. “They have high concentrations of Internet-savvy young people. But they also have a lot of competition. The real WiMAX opportunity is outside of large cities.” Packet One, a WiMAX provider in Malaysia, appears to be following such a strategy. Its first deployments in were in Kuala Lumpur, but it has moved rapidly to launch in Johor and Penang, two less densely populated states outside the capital region.


“Incumbent broadband suppliers and cellular operators offering High-Speed Packet Access, HSPA, alternatives are formidable competitors in the big cities,” notes David Kerr, head of Strategy Analytics Global Wireless Practice. “There’s simply a lot more un-served demand in market towns and provincial business centers.”

WiMAX seems to be really catching on in areas that currently don't have much infrastructure and deployments are growing. LTE better hurry up!

Highly Integrated Chip and Platform Solutions From Infineon

by MWJ European Editor, Richard Mumford

Infineon’s Wireless Solutions Division is a leading provider of semiconductors and system solutions to serve the growing trends in the mobile communication market. In Hall 1, Stand B19 the company will present its highly integrated semiconductor solutions, complete systems platforms and Software products. The focus will be on highlighting different ‘flavours’ of ultra low-cost mobile phone platforms, ranging from 2G to 3G and something new in positioning technology, the A-GPS solution.

Experts will be on hand to discuss the company’s comprehensive cellphone semiconductor and system-level offering ranging from integrated single-chip GSM/GPRS/EDGE solutions to slim HSDPA/HSUPA modem platforms.

Other highlights include:
● Infineon's road to LTE
● Comprehensive cellular transceiver portfolio covering all bands and all modes from GPRS up to LTE and WiMAX
● Smallest HSPA+ RF solutions for best-in-class cellular talk time
● Smart modems for smart phones: HSPA modem platforms combining high performance and small footprint
● More voice: comprehensive ULC platforms with innovations for even lower costs
● Internet-for-all: entry phone platforms with a common architecture from GPRS to low-cost 3G

Google Starts "White Spaces" Group

It was recently announced that Google is teaming up with several technology companies, including Comsearch, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Motorola and Neustar, to form a new coalition called the White Spaces Database Group, which will provide and compile into a database technical specifications for devices that will use white space spectrum.

White spaces are unused slivers of spectrum in the 700 MHz band that sit between broadcast TV channels. Google and others successfully lobbied the FCC last year to open up that spectrum for unlicensed use so that new wireless devices could access that spectrum. In its ruling in November, the FCC said that devices using a combination of geolocation technology and spectrum-sensing technology could be approved for unlicensed white space use. Before sending or receiving data, devices will be required to access this database to determine available channels. And the device will not transmit in channels that are already known to be in use.

TV broadcasters and wireless microphone companies have long opposed the use of this spectrum fearing it will interfere with their services but Google believes that using geolocation technology used along with spectrum sensing technologies will offer complete protection to licensed signals from harmful interference. Do you think the TV broadcasters and wireless microphone companies have a legitimate complaint?

Garmin Gets into the Smartphone Game

Building up to Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next week, several well known companies have been hinting about new smartphones offerings, each with a specific use case and no shortage of challenges to overcome.

Taiwanese PDA and computer-maker AsusTek Computer and personal navigation device (PND) company Garmin formally announced that the two companies will introduce a jointly branded line of smartphones, called Garmin-Asus nuvifone, the first of which will debut at MWC. Jonney Shih Chairmen of Asustek said that the Garmin-Asus phone will likely launch worldwide by next year and that the G60 will be announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The MWC is already pegged to be the launch pad for both Dell and Acer’s additions to the smartphone family. Garmin-Asus will also compete against popular devices such as the iPhone and T-Mobile's G1 Android-based handset by specializing in location-based services (LBS), executives from both companies said.

The location-centric smartphone could hypothetically take the place of a traditional PND and is optimized for communication and navigation. The first nuvifone also will feature Ciao, a social networking application that combines location-based social networks in the device and the same turn-by-turn, voice-prompted navigation as Garmin’s PNDs. It comes preloaded with maps and points of interest that are searchable by category, establishment name or destination.

In expanding beyond its core competency, Garmin will be hard-pressed to find distribution channels or carrier partners, said Neil Mawston, director of global wireless practice for Strategy Analytics. The brand is not associated with mobile devices, and it already attempted its first nuvifone device back in early 2008 with very little uptake. Teaming with Asus is a step in the right direction, but Mawston said they are far from success.

“Garmin is one of the world’s biggest players in [PND] and has a good reputation,” Mawston said. “If they were to come along with a good set of apps and a store that goes with it and prove to carriers there is a potential to grow revenue through new services like social location — if they could prove there is potential to raise ARPU — there is definitely potential to work with big players. But at the present time, you struggle to see how they are standing apart from the competition. They don’t have the brand strength, the brand isn’t exciting, and the services don’t stand out — they are good rather than great.”

Personal navigation, along with gaming devices, is a segment that many analysts believe would make prime candidates for app-specific mobile Internet devices (MIDs), pocketable computers optimized around mobile Web browsing. But the segment is still a few years off as vendors focus on the netbook and smartphone category.

Agilent Cover Mobile Communications T&M Spectrum

by Richard Mumford, MWJ European Editor

Agilent Technologies will showcase its measurement solutions for LTE, TD-LTE, HSPA+, E-EDGE (EDGE Evolution), WiMAXTM, UMA/GAN, 3GPP W-CDMA, GSM 3GPP Long Term Evolution, femtocells, mobile business analytics and VoIP for MSS.

Visitors to Hall 1, Stand D45 will see Agilent demonstrate:
● The Radio Digital Cross Domain (RDX) solution that provides a single test environment for MIPI Digital Radio Frequency (DigRF) v3 and v4 protocols.
● MIMO channel emulation and co-existence test, solved with the N5106A PXB MIMO receiver tester.
● Industry-leading mobile test solutions for HSPA+, HSDPA, E-EDGE, UMA/GAN and GPS.
● LTE RF measurements and LTE high-definition video streaming using an LTE device simulator.
● WiMAX RF, protocol and application test, including base station emulation, protocol logging, network conformance test, radiated performance test, pre-RF conformance test, and protocol conformance test (including TTCN3-scripting).
● The E6474A-645 LTE Receiver Measurements, together with W1314A measurement receivers, enable network equipment manufacturers and wireless operators' RF engineering teams to measure the coverage of LTE eNodeBs – identifying P-SCH and S-SCH RSSI and LTE Cell-ID and detect cell overlap.
● Signalling Analyzer Real-time (SART) LTE, which runs on the Distributed Network Analyzer platform to provide a high-performance test solution for end-to-end system verification, troubleshooting and optimization.
● Comprehensive assureME applications, which help operators accelerate deployment of VoIP for Mobile Soft Switch Networks.
● Agilent's Wireless Data Analytics solution, which helps to improve operational and business performance by transforming huge volumes of signalling and usage data (IuPS, Gn, Gb) into actionable information.
● Wireless installation and maintenance (I&M) with the FieldFox RF Analyzer.



Ron Nersesian, vice president of Agilent's Wireless Business Unit stated, "Our newest measurement solutions shown at this event demonstrate our ongoing commitment to empower engineers to stay at the forefront of dramatically evolving mobile-communications technologies."

A TRIUMF FOR TRIQUINT

by Richard Mumford, MWJ European Editor

TriQuint Semiconductor will be showcasing the TriQuint Unified Mobile Front-end (TRIUMF) Module™ family, convergence architecture for mobile device manufacturers designing next generation 3G/4G products. The family aims to offer manufacturers a streamlined radio frequency footprint combining GSM, EDGE, WCDMA and HSPA transmit functionality into one module. This convergence of functionality into one power amplifier module should offer up to a 50 percent size reduction over today’s multi-band module solutions.

Andreas Nitschke, product marketing manager for mobile handsets at TriQuint stated, “TriQuint set the industry standard for size and performance with its highly-integrated TRITIUM and QUANTUM Module families for 3G devices. We are using this expertise and ability to design both active and passive RF elements into one elegant RF system solution in the development of the TRIUMF Module family. TRIUMF will take integration to a whole new level, combining support for multiple frequency bands and modes into a single converged solution.”

He added, “We are working closely with our chipset partners and customers to implement the architecture for next generation 3G and 4G devices with world-class RF performance in an industry leading size.”

Those interested in finding out more about the TRUIMF and TriQuint’s large portfolio of products can visit Hall 1, Stand A62 and look out for the 3GSM Mobile World Congress Wrap-up Article that will be published here after the show.

ROHDE & SCHWARZ GOES TOP SECRET

by Richard Mumford, MWJ European Editor

As a leading supplier of test and measurement solutions for wireless communications and with over 75 years of experience of driving innovation, Rohde & Schwarz will showcase its MIMO, 3GPP LTE, HSPA+, WiMAX™ and Edge Evolution in Hall 1, Stand D59. A new addition to the portfolio is the R&S CMW500 test platform solution that performs all relevant wireless device tests, especially for LTE and HSPA+. When equipped with the appropriate hardware and software components, the R&S CMW500 can perform T&M tasks ranging from RF and protocol tests up to complex application tests.

The company will also highlight two new models of the recently launched R&S FSV family. These two combination signal and spectrum analyzers have been expanded for applications up to 13.6 GHz and 30 GHz, respectively.

In addition Rohde & Schwarz SIT GmbH, a leader in the German crypto market, will display the latest version of its compact mobile voice encryption device that protects confidential mobile phone calls. The TopSec Mobile can be used together with state-of-the-art mobile phones due to its plug & play functionality and Bluetooth® interface.

College Students Chat with Space Station Using Their Radio

Four Toronto college students from The Humber College have accomplished a technological feat by making contact with the International Space Station last week using a radio system they designed and built themselves. It was a scheduled event so they did not just call them out of the blue.

The project got off the ground about a year ago as the students looked for a way to apply knowledge gained from their radio communication courses. The first message got no response, but a second attempt reached astronaut Sandra Magnus. They had a 10-minute window to talk to her, during which they asked some technical questions and passed on a few other questions from contest winners at the school. One student asked how well the International Space Station is protected from debris, while another wanted to know how it feels to see Earth from space.

While school contacts with the space station are routinely made through the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station program, many of those contacts are made using a traditional ham radio. “It's an incredible feat of undertaking and technology, and I'd just like to say I'm really, really proud of this team,” said Humber instructor Mark Rector.

So on the next revolution around the Earth, dial up the power on your ham radio and see if you can reach them!

Happy 50th to the Integrated Circuit Patent

On this day (February 6th) in 1959, Jack Kilby (November 8, 1923 - June 20, 2005) filed a patent for a "Solid Circuit made of Germanium", the first integrated circuit. Along with Robert Noyce (who independently made a similar circuit a few months later), Kilby is generally credited as co-inventor of the integrated circuit. He was a Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 2000 for his invention of the integrated circuit.

The transistor, invented at Bell Labs in 1947 had stimulated engineers to design ever more complex electronic circuits and equipment containing hundreds or thousands of discrete components such as transistors, diodes, rectifiers and capacitors. But the problem was that these components still had to be interconnected to form electronic circuits, and hand-soldering thousands of components to thousands of bits of wire was expensive and time-consuming. It was also unreliable; every soldered joint was a potential source of trouble, complex circuit designs were hampered by the unreliability of using numerous discrete devices. This problem was commonly called the "tyranny of numbers".

Texas Instruments (TI) was working on this issue via the Micro-Module program when Kilby joined the company in 1958. In mid-1958, Kilby finally came to the conclusion that this approach would not work and that manufacturing the circuit components in mass in a single piece of semiconductor material could provide a solution.

On September 12 he presented his findings to the management, which included Mark Shepherd, of Texas Instruments: he showed them a sliver of germanium, with protruding wires, glued to a glass slide. It was a relatively simple device that Jack Kilby showed to a handful of co-workers gathered in TI’s semiconductor lab — only a transistor and other components on a slice of germanium, but when Kilby pressed the switch, an unending sine curve undulated across the oscilloscope screen.



In addition to the integrated circuit, Kilby also is noted for patenting the electronic portable calculator and the thermal printer used in data terminals. In total, he held about 60 patents.

Appropriately enough for the occasion of this anniversary, the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, the foremost forum for presentation of advances in solid-state circuits and systems-on-a-chip runs next week from February 8th to the 12th in San Fransisco. Of particular interest to our industry will be sessions held on Radios for health services; Things all RFIC designers should know (but are afraid to ask); RF building blocks; Wireless connectivity; mm-wave devices and a forum on 4G front-ends.

The advance program is available at:

http://www.isscc.org/isscc/2009/advprog.pdf

Wireless Charging Coming This Year

While I did not attend CES 2009, one of the hot emerging products was wireless charging. Powermat was there showing off its family of charging mats (using inductive coupling) for mobile devices like cell phones, PDAs, etc. They are very efficient (like 93%) so charging is relatively fast and they should be available soon (maybe Q2 this year). These mats would would cost about $100 so they are reasonably priced for a first to market, high tech product.

Fulton is taking a different approach with their wireless charging technology dubbed eCoupled. They are working with large consumer product companies to integrate their product into various consumer applications including automobiles where you could sit your device in a box in the dashboard of your car for charging.

Leggett & Platt is part of the Fulton Partnership and was displaying a system that it says is more flexible than others. It can charge larger devices, with power tools being an early target market. Image shelves that you could set your power tools on that would charge them automatically or having you kitchen counter top capable of charging your blender, toaster, etc. There could come a day when we have no more power outlets in our home, just walls that inductively charge our electronics and run our lights, appliancies, etc.

One big application is TV sets and with wireless HD starting to evolve (there are currently 3 different standards), there would be no need for wires on your nice new flat screen HDTV. That would really simplify mounting them to a wall with wireless power and have your set top box transmit wireless HD signals to it. We might finally be able to use our high tech toys without wires!