Motorola

While wireless network solutions have progressed into the enterprise and public access markets, the home networking market has continued to search for an appropriate wireless solution. Multimedia-centric devices and applications are fueling an increased demand for wireless connectivity solutions for the home market, but existing solutions are not providing the unique features the home market demands. In many ways, wireless technology for the home is in "the dark ages." Nothing fundamentally different has been created within the science of wireless communications to allow for a shift in the classic wireless paradigm. For decades, classic radio design has involved a fundamental trade-off between data rate, cost of the implementation at the semiconductor level, and the amount of power consumed by the total solution. When one utilizes classic radio design techniques to increase data rate performance, a penalty is paid in the form of increased cost and power consumption. This is primarily due to the increased signal processing necessary to achieve the higher data rates.

The home market is unique in that it simultaneously requires high data rates (for multiple streams of digital video), very low cost (for broad consumer adoption), and very low power consumption (for embedding into battery powered handheld appliances). Ultra-wideband (UWB) is a response to this market's needs by undertaking a fundamentally new approach to the design of a wireless communication system. In many ways, it is Michelangelo's "David" emerging from decades of the classic approach, but creating an enduring approach that will catalyze a fundamentally different way to approach wireless communications within the consumer electronics market.