The Wireless Weblog

This week, scientists from IBM Research announced the creation of a chipset designed to work within the evolving millimeter-wave or "mmWave" 802.15.3c specification for wireless personal area networks (WPANs).

802.15.3c aims to deliver data rates of 2 to 3 Gbps or more.

Brian Gaucher, Research Manager at IBM Research, says 60 GHz, where 802.15.3c operates, is particularly attractive for high-bandwidth multimedia applications. "It's free, unlicensed and available around the world – and there's 7 GHz of space, which just means speed for us," he says.

The result, Gaucher says, is a solution that provides much more functionality than the comparatively Limited bandwidth of Bluetooth, or the comparatively limited power and speed of ultrawideband. Gaucher calls it "the next personal area network standard."

Press release is here.

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