Unleashing USB

The thirst for connectivity seemingly grows stronger every day as consumers and developers alike look to link even more devices together. And the method of choice is, increasingly, wireless communication. But there is a parallel development; removing the cables that currently link peripherals and hosts. Both of these approaches are fuelling the development of new communications methods, including Certified Wireless USB. Using an Ultra Wideband (UWB) radio defined by the WiMedia Alliance, Certified Wireless USB will deliver speeds up to 480Mbit/s at 3m (degrading to 110Mbit/s at 10m). By broadcasting at low power over a wide spectrum (3.1 to 10.5GHz), Certified Wireless USB devices consume very little power and are said to coexist with other wireless technologies, such as WiFi (IEEE802.11) and Bluetooth. Certified Wireless USB is a personal area network (PAN) and, as such, has been designed for high throughput, short range communication. It is not a networking technology: Certified Wireless USB continues the hub and spoke model used by wired USB in which a single host can handle up to 127 devices. A host centric model reduces complexity on the device side and enables significant cost savings. As you might expect in a market driven primarily by time to market, reference designs are emerging to help companies hit those often elusive market windows.