WiQuest, a fabless semiconductor firm focused on ultrawideband (UWB) solutions and a member of the WiMedia alliance, has recently released a gigabit-per-second UWB chipset, composed of the WQST101 and the WQST110. UWB represents a new class of wireless connectivity that will not only improve the effectiveness of existing usage models, but will also lead to new applications not possible with previous protocols such as WiFi or Bluetooth. The new chipset will especially lend itself to mobile devices requiring short-range, low-power and high-speed wireless point-to-point connectivity.

Article Tools

• 

The dual component chipset uses two complementary fabrication processes. The WQST101 is fabricated on IBM’s SiGe process, RF. The WQST110, based on a CMOS process by TSMC, performs the digital signal processing.

According to Matthew Shoemake, president and CEO of WiQuest, when designing an UWB-based feature into a product, it is important to understand the strengths and limitations of UWB. UWB links generally do not travel through walls, and the signal range is between 5 m and 20 m. However, these aspects, along with the 1 Gbps throughput and 0.1 mW of transmitted power, strengthen certain usage models for the chipset.

For example, UWB could be suited for uploading content from a digital video recorder to a PC. In that application, the ability to penetrate walls or operate over long distances might actually complicate the ease of use.

The throughput between UWB systems could be increased by a factor of two or three with one or two additional chipsets, respectively, placed in each device. In this technique, each chipset is assigned the unique center frequency for one of the three 500 MHz wide bands in the WiMedia UWB protocol.

The chipset is designed for robust operation in high-noise environments. One potential difficulty that is addressed by this chipset is interoperability of multiple UWB links—up to four are possible—that are within operational range of each other. This makes the chipset suitable for solutions in office environments.

The chipset includes a unique Media Access Controller (MAC) design implemented in the system-on-chip (SoC). The obvious question for Shoemake and his design team (entirely based at WiQuest’s Allen, Texas, campus north of Dallas) is how close WiQuest is to a single-chip UWB solution.

Shoemake responds, “This first-generation chipset has two components. We’re literally one step away from achieving that goal.”