UWB is a wireless radio technology designed to transmit data within short ranges (up to 10 meters). It transmits at very high bandwidths (up to 480 Mbps) while using little power. UWB is ideal for exchanging data between consumer electronics (CE), PCs, PC peripherals, and mobile devices at very high speeds over short distances. For instance, it could transfer all the pictures on a digital camera's memory card to a computer in a few seconds.

What

A report from the technical research service Unstrung Insider predicts that the growing number of UWB startups is creating a market that potentially could grow larger than Wi-Fi* and Bluetooth* combined. The report, "Ultrawideband: Spectrum for Free," predicts that the market could grow to $630 million by 2007.

makes UWB unique is its ability to handle the very high bandwidths required for transporting the ever-increasing digital data appetite of new digital devices. This makes it an excellent radio technology for Wireless USB — a technology that will bring all the convenience of USB-type connections but without the wire. It's also perfect for other cable replacement applications such as Wireless 1394, or FireWire*. In fact, it's been selected by the Bluetooth* special interest group (SIG) for its ability to increase the bandwidth of current Bluetooth applications.

UWB will usher in a new age of convenience and freedom. Everywhere today that you would use a USB or 1394 cable could be wireless. A portable DVD player could broadcast its contents to a flat panel display mounted on a wall, for example. A notebook computer user could put their notebook on their desk and instantly be connected to all the peripherals around them (printer, backup disk drive, scanner, full-size keyboard, mouse, speaker system, digital camcorder, etc.).

The market research firm In-Stat/MDR predicts that UWB node/chipset shipments will experience an emerging market compound annual growth rate of over 400 percent from 2006 to 2008. What's more, UWB faces no serious competition. Alternatives only offer slower ways to perform data transfers — speeds that are 5 to 100 times slower. UWB is in a class by itself.

A big challenge for UWB has been its fundamental difference from the radio technologies used today. Typically, radio technologies focus on simultaneously transmitting many separate signals over long distances. Each signal occupies a band of frequencies. These frequencies are allocated by governments throughout the world to specific service providers.

UWB, on the other hand, employs an entirely different technique than typical radio technologies. It broadcasts over extremely short distances using a broad spectrum. Instead of concentrating a powerful signal in a narrow band, the signal is spread over a very broad band at very low power levels. In fact, the wider the band, the better for transmitting high data rates.

Traditional radio technologies assign a narrow spectrum to a single carrier. UWB uses a broad spectrum signal that overlays other spectra but only transmits an extremely short distance.

The width of this band has been part of the controversy in bringing UWB to market. Its use necessitates overlaying spectrum already allocated to other users. But this is where operating at low power comes in. UWB would operate at or below levels currently allowed for the unintentional radio frequency energy radiated today by many electronic devices such as hair dryers, game players, and even PCs.

In 2003, Intel became the first company to be granted a special license to demonstrate UWB in Japan.

Nevertheless, there is concern of undue interference for some services. The FCC in the US, for instance, received more than 900 comments from the industry during its commentary period on UWB. The FCC did two years of extensive testing and decided to let UWB proceed. The agency mandated in 2002 that UWB radio transmissions can legally operate in the range from 3.1 GHz up to 10.6 GHz, at a limited transmit power of -41dBm/MHz. This step authorized commercial deployment of UWB equipment in the U.S. However, different countries may need to protect different services than the U.S.

A UWB signal can be produced using various technologies. Intel supports the use of multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) for communications devices. The advantage of multiband OFDM is that it uses multiple bands and frequencies. By enabling simple control over individual frequency tones, multiband OFDM allows devices to use different frequencies in different regions to comply with varying regulations and avoid interfering with other radio devices.

Intel continues to work within regulatory forums around the world on appropriate interference mitigation techniques to remove any cause for concern and to gain agreement on UWB power levels that will allow UWB to be a robust wireless communication technology.

Initial work toward a radio standard for UWB began in IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). The IEEE 802.15.3a committee began by soliciting proposals from 21 companies. Intel participated in merges with 12 different companies that resulted in the founding of the MultiBand OFDM Alliance, a special interest group composed of companies in the PC,

The standardization of a common UWB platform will enable device manufacturers in the PC, mobile, and CE markets the world over to easily implement UWB as the radio or transport mechanism, taking advantage of the low power and high bandwidth this technology provides.

consumer electronics (CE) and cellular communication industries. The MBOA wanted to create a complete specification for a UWB solution using multiband OFDM for the physical (PHY) layer, the media access controller (MAC) layer, and the interface in between.

The IEEE 802.15.3a committee reviewed the 21 proposals and ultimately selected one — the MBOA proposal. Nevertheless, in the initial vote it was unable to achieve the 75 percent majority required for confirmation. At that point, the last proposal voted out — Direct Sequence UWB — was brought back for consideration. This proposal is supported by a group called the UWB Forum. Ever since then, the two proposals have remained in contention in repeated votes. While the MBOA for a time worked aggressively toward a compromise, it eventually reached an impasse and decided to work both inside and outside the IEEE. MBOA's focus turned toward completing the development of the MBOA radio and MAC specifications.

Significant progress was made. In May 2004, the WiMedia Alliance — an industry alliance dedicated to creating a pervasive wireless media networking solution for PC, CE and mobile devices based on UWB technology — announced support for the MultiBand OFDM Alliance UWB specifications. The MBOA and WiMedia Alliance then began working in tandem on various UWB industry initiatives.

The technology was first successfully demonstrated at the Fall 2004 Intel Developer Forum (IDF). Intel, NEC, Texas Instruments and Wisair demonstrated product elements exchanging data with each other in the world's first multivendor interoperability demonstration of Wireless USB and multiband OFDM UWB technology. The technology was also demonstrated at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with eight simultaneous UWB demonstrations from different companies in the UWB Techzone, and at WinHec and the Wireless USB Developers conferences in May.

In March 2005 Intel showed significant progress in its efforts to drive development of a complete, standards-based, common platform for UWB. It announced the completion of the MBOA's PHY layer specification v1.0.

"One of the key successes of the UWB program is the enormous industry support and cooperation for developing the specifications. Close to 200 companies are involved. With the merger of WiMedia and MBOA, the association will grow stronger and deliver a more integrated, interoperable specification. – Kevin Kahn, Senior Fellow Intel Corporate Technology Group

The WiMCA specification is the only architecture that allows multiple applications to coexist and share a single UWB radio platform. Some of the more notable applications that could potentially operate on top of the MBOA UWB radio platform would be Universal Serial Bus (USB), IEEE 1394/FireWire, the next generation of Bluetooth, and Universal Plug and Play (UPnP).

Momentum behind the WiMedia Alliance specifications continues to build. Close to 200 companies now support it. This includes a vast majority of the world's leading CE companies and 9 of the 10 world's top semiconductor companies. The USB Implementer's Forum also supports this specification. Other wireless groups — including those involved with IEEE 1394/FireWire and Bluetooth (a key technology for cellular applications) — have stepped onto the UWB bandwagon.

Standards are often established by everyone agreeing to do the same thing. By this definition, the multiband OFDM is clearly the leading UWB industry standard. WiMedia Alliance members will continue to offer the MBOA PHY and MAC specifications to the IEEE and other standards organizations, while pursuing further development of the best overall solution for UWB-based products that comply with worldwide regulatory requirements.

In the second quarter of 2005, the WiMedia Alliance received an important waiver from the FCC redefining the method of testing UWB products. This paves the way for WiMedia Alliance member companies to start shipping products in the US. The first MBOA products are expected by the first quarter of 2006.

In

A host of major manufacturers in Japan and Korea — including Sony Corp. of Japan, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. of Korea, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. of Japan, Sharp Corp. of Japan, Victor Co. of Japan, Ltd. (JVC), Pioneer Electronic Corp. of Japan, NEC Corp. of Japan and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. of Japan — have positioned UWB as an "ultra-high-speed interface" for linking digital home appliances such as plasma display panel (PDP) and liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs, digital cameras, camcorders, digital videodisk (DVD) player/recorders, hard disk drive (HDD) recorders, PCs and PC peripherals.

an ideal world, one UWB standard would cover the world and be supported by harmonized regulations, enabling the efficiencies of mass production and global interoperability to quickly spread the advantages of UWB around the world. That's why a major focus for Intel and the WiMedia Alliance is global acceptance of the multiband OFDM specification and a favorable regulatory environment for UWB.

A potential avenue for worldwide agreement could be the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) Task Group 1/8. Governments and companies around the world will be participating in 1/8 to help devise global parameters for the protection of existing incumbents as a framework for UWB introduction. Nevertheless, while the ITU may recommend various technical specifications, individual members countries will still need to promulgate rules implementing these recommendations.

In many parts of the world, progress in UWB acceptance is being made. Intel again is playing a key role. The WiMedia Alliance has a regulatory group that is worldwide in scope with Asian, European and US groups that are staffed with Intel representatives. These groups are performing research and analysis, then sharing their results and working with local organizations and governing bodies to help define UWB regulations for commercial applications. It's not possible to go into all the work being done, but what follows is a brief sampling.

An independent economic study, prepared by Mason Communications and DotEcon, suggests significant economic benefits from UWB use for the UK economy.

A UWB Experimental Task Force was organized by MMAC in December 2004 to conduct the interference testing for five potentially affected parties — the fixed microwave, broadcasting, satellite, cellular, and wireless access systems. Intel has been elected the Chair of the Wireless Access Group, which focuses on the interference testing with 802.11a and 802.11j devices, and has been actively involved in all these experiments. The results of these experiments will be reported to MIC's UWB Radio Systems Committee in 2005. A revision-to-radio regulation will be discussed while looking at recommendations from the ITU-R Task Group 1/8.

China
Intel

"I was quite encouraged by the response we received. Everywhere we went there was genuine interest in learning about the role that spectrum reform could play in enabling new radio technologies." – Peter Pitsch, Intel Director of Communications Policy, after a trip to Japan, Korea and China.

is working closely with China's Ministry of Information and Industry (MII) to understand the regulatory changes needed to support future generation wireless technologies. UWB is a major part of this push, so MII is monitoring the progress of UWB technology closely. China's industry and academia have also shown major interest in UWB. In response, Intel is collaborating with universities to study UWB.

The success of any new wireless technology ultimately depends on governments making appropriate radio spectrum available.

"As the convergences of computing, communications and consumer electronics becomes more prevalent in people's lives, there is a need for high-speed, interoperable wireless communications between devices that also brings the benefits of volume economics to users. For Intel, this means driving the industry toward a common standards-based platform for UWB wireless technology that enables multiple applications to run on one common radio, and devices to easily communicate with each other." – Pat Gelsinger, Senior VP and General Manager, Intel Digital Enterprise Group

A great deal of negotiation and education is needed to ensure that these regulations allow new advances to make their way into products that can interoperate and be used around the world.

Intel's interest in UWB lies in the technology's ability to turn many of the wired connections we use today into high-speed wireless connections. Consequently, it is important to Intel that countries adopt regulations that allow for worldwide operation of UWB devices. This is vital both to the customer experience — being able to use UWB-enabled devices from one country to the next — as well as from a production point of view. The economies of scale that will make UWB technology inexpensive enough to be available to the greatest number of people require global

Intel's goals are to ensure that UWB can coexist peacefully with existing radio services and that there's a favorable regulatory environment for it.

cooperation in allocating the same spectrum from country to country. In regards to UWB, much of the issue is a matter of re-education. The traditional way of thinking — not permitting use of the same spectrum — needs to be reconsidered in light of UWB's ability to share spectrum without causing interference. It's time to reform the spectrum regulations currently designed for old technology and open the door for the new technologies such as UWB that offer the next wave of innovation in how we use and connect devices.