Think More Thunk

An Unexpected broadband market driver

Clearly VOIP is viewed as a strong driver of Broadband service and thus infrastructure in the U.S. market. An additional, and lesser understood, driver for broadband services and infrastructure development in the US is the enhanced capabilities of the Internet Protocol afforded by IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) which exponentially increases the number of available Internet addresses, enables the proliferation of enhanced mobile services and applications, and affords an overall increased security. ENUM, a mapping protocol in use by global directory clearinghouses, depends in large part on the deployment of IPv6 as this next generation of the internet enables the assignment of IP addresses to everything with connectivity to the internet. In this case, if you look up ENUM, Wikipedia will fail to correctly define the term; ENUM is not a simple telephone number mapping protocol. ENUM has the potential to expand its use beyond mapping of telephone numbers and email addresses to a universal and global assignment of individuals to their associated numbers (telephone, IP addresses, email addresses, residences, bank numbers, drivers license numbers, and passport numbers). This promises a true convergence of communications devices onto the Internet by facilitating the integration of telephone numbers and IP addresses. There are various reasons for the interest in developing a global ENUM network. Chief among these is a monitoring and control capability which will allow governments to administer the society they serve. It makes possible, among other things, a consumer ability to finish watching a television program once he gets home from a friend’s house. In fact the one year long ENUM trial in North America ended on February 17 of 2007, under the authority of the ITU. The results of the trial will be released to governmental bodies at the end of April 2007. Participating companies include GoDaddy, VeriSign, NeuStar (the clearinghouse which controls all IP addresses, landline phone numbers, and mobile phone numbers in North America), Qwest, InCharge Systems, Instra, DelTel, Evolving Systems, AG Design, Seiri, BellSouth, Encirca, and Verizon. The dark side of ENUM and IPv6 is its infringement on the fundamental rights afforded to Americans by their constitution. In some countries around the world, governmental observance of its populous is considered acceptable due to the benefits of security that result from losing individual privacy. However even technologists must consider the implications of enabling governmental tracking of its population as the misuse of this capability in the hands of even a transient 4-year administration may do much more harm than illegal and indiscriminant wiretapping.

A CMOS software defined radio that operates across 174MHz to 6GHz

If this software-defined radio works as advertised, IMEC has achieved quite a feat!

"The 130nm CMOS IC covers all standards from 174MHz to 6GHz. IMEC’s wideband software-defined radio (SDR) transceiver, named SCALDIO, is widely programmable to operate with all current and future cellular, WLAN, WPAN, broadcast and positioning standards in the frequency range between the 174MHz and 6GHz. The unique architecture of the multi-mode SDR transceiver has a power consumption and CMOS chip area comparable to current state-of-the-art single mode radios thereby fitting the performance, power and cost requirements for integration into next-generation mass volume mobile devices. Today, state-of-the-art multi-mode terminals have a limited flexibility of two or three standard modes and suffer from increased power consumption and bill-of-material cost due to lack of reuse of building blocks. IMEC realized world’s first functional silicon of a true SDR transceiver IC which can be widely programmed to operate with all present and future standards in the frequency range between the 174MHz and 6GHz. The SDR front-end is highly integrated to save cost and area. The reconfigurable radio front-end IC in 130nm technology uses only 1.2V supply voltage and has an active area of 7.7mm2. Depending on its configuration the SDR front-end has a power consumption ranging from 60 to 120mA which is comparable to a single-mode radio."

Link: About IMEC - Press Releases.

Using Piezoelectric Windmills to Power Wireless Sensor Networks

Four researchers from the University of Texas Arlington recently completed a study that uses a miniature windmill to convert wind energy into electric energy. This is surprisingly more efficient than the large scale versions and uses piezoelectric vanes which are called biomorphs attached to a crankshaft. Because piezoelectric material can generate high voltages with a minute magnitude of deflection, this design could be feasible for powering wireless sensor networks. The team recently demonstrated just that and wrote up the results in a paper: "Myers, Robert, Vickers, Mike, Kim, Hyeoungwoo, and Priya, Shashank. “Small scale windmill.” Applied Physics Letters 90, 054106 (2007)."

Infineon closes R&D center

Infineon, one of the original significant semiconductor OEMs to get into ultra wideband development has decided to close up their UWB activity. It may be that this is the beginning of a trend.

Link: Globes [online] - Infineon closes R&D center.

RuBee...

The IEEE recently initiated a new wireless standard, P1902.1 or Rubee. The protocol is defined today as operating below 450 Khz to enable networks of thousands of tags, each with a range of 10 to 50 feet. The protocol will use IPv4 addresses that enables remote  monitoring using a simple web interface. Rubee will likely be bidirectional and peer-to-peer. The difference between Rubee and RFID, according to the IEEE,  is that Rubee tags are unaffected by liquids, are unaffected by steel, and can be used underwater and underground. Among other applications, Rubee could be used for implantable medical sensors.

RuBee is unique because it is not an RF protocol, which explains why it is not being developed in the IEEE's 802.15 working group. RuBee uses magnetic waves to generate the signal. This leads to really long battery lives because generating a signal inductively is much less power hungry that doing it with RF. Also the antenna can be a simple coil, and it avoids many of the interference issues of RF protocols. Thus, the antennas (such as they are) are off the shelf and the signals are generally immune to noise and material. RuBee has developed in a frequency which is available for use internationally.

That said, Rubee has a lot going for it. First and most important is that there are already RuBee products out there. Companies like Visible Assets, Inc. have demonstrated the market demand.

IEEE P1902.1 Specification:

• 450 Khz
• Peer to Peer
• 10 year battery life
• 10 to 50 feet range
• Network of thousands