This article is more than 1 year old

Sony to demo 'world's first' in-box wireless tech

Component shall speak unto component

Sony has developed a wireless communications technology designed to replace the cabling within gadgets rather than connections between devices.

The technology operates within the 30-300GHz band. It's called the 'millimetre wave' zone, thanks to a wavelength of 1-10mm, but it's the frequency that matters since it's high enough to permit very high speed data transfer.

The small wavelength means the antennae can be tiny.

Perfect, in short for in-box communications, Sony reckons.

The range is limited, mind. Using a 1mm antenna, Sony was able to get a 11Gb/s transmission speed over a distance of just 14mm. The effort used 70mW of power. Better, more directional aerials can be used to get the distance up to 50mm, Sony said.

Sony built a 40nm, 13mm² test chip containing transmitter, receiver and antennae to demonstrate the technology. It will be showing it off at International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISCC) in San Francisco this week.

Why replace wires inside, say, a TV set? Because it means fewer materials are used to produce the device, Sony claimed, and it "enhances the reliability of movable and detachable parts within the product".

In short, it allows companies to make truly modular products whose component parts don't need to be wired together.

Sony is already gearing up to release device-to-device near-field data transfer kit that operates at up to 560Mb/s. It will be released under the TransferJet brand. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like