Challenges mount for ultra-wideband wireless

Ultra-wideband wireless, which underlies wireless USB products, suffered another jolt recently when one UWB pioneer shut down operations.

WiQuest, a fabless semiconductor company in Allen, Texas, closed its doors when it couldn't raise additional funding. Intel's decision to scrub its UWB research, made months ago, surfaced into public view about the same time. And WiQuest rival Alereon announced it had acquired part of Stonestreet One's wireless USB business: its USB drivers.

Last May, Texas Instruments announced it was withdrawing from the WiMedia Alliance, which oversees the UWB specification and interoperability testing, and backing 802.11n Wi-Fi as the next underlying radio technology for the Bluetooth protocols, a project launched in February by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. That seemed to push the SIG's plan to run Bluetooth over UWB, announced two years ago, to a lower priority.

And earlier this year, Sony announced its own UWB alternative: a short-range, low-power wireless technology, dubbed TransferJet, which has won the backing of more than a dozen of the world's biggest consumer-electronics companies.

On the plus side, start-up USB-chipmaker Staccato Communications announced that its new Ripcord2 family of single-chip CMOS USB silicon devices had won certification from the WiMedia Alliance. The Ripcord2 silicon supports additional frequencies (so vendors can build UWB products using one device that can work globally), hopping among channels (increasing range), sidestepping radar or cellular networks to avoid interference.

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